Mobile terminal and control method therefor

• US 20040097244A1
• Filed: 07/31/2003
• Published: 05/20/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 07/31/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Maxell, Ltd.
• Original Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Inventors: Suzuki, Koji, Yamazaki, Masahiro, Kuwamoto, Hideki
• Granted Patent: US 7,054,649 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 455/456.3
• CPC Class Codes: H04M 1/72457 according to geographic location

Abstract

Unused application programs are compressed and preserved so as to save memory consumption. Further, a user is not kept uncomfortable while waiting for an application program to be ready.

A table establishing the correspondence between applications often used by the user and locations at which the applications are used is prepared. Then, location information of the user is periodically acquired and, if the location is within the location range set by the user, the application program set by the user is decompressed.

Claims

1. A mobile terminal comprising:

a compressed-application preserving means compressing application programs and preserving them;

a location-information acquiring means acquiring location information of the mobile terminal;

a means referring to the location acquired by said location-information acquiring means and determining whether or not the application program stored in said compressed-application preserving means should be decompressed;

a decompressing means decompressing the application program when the determining means has determined that the application program should be decompressed; and

a decompressed-application storing means storing the decompressed application program.

2. A mobile terminal according to claim 1 comprising a correspondence table storing the correspondence between an identifier of said application program and data of a location range.

3. A mobile terminal according to claim 2, wherein there exists a decompressed application program in said decompressed-application storing means, and the mobile terminal comprises a means to determine, according to the state of use of the decompressed application program, whether or not the decompressed application program should be deleted from said decompressed-application storing means when the location of the mobile terminal acquired by said location-information acquiring means is out of the location range corresponding to the decompressed application program on said correspondence table.

4. A mobile terminal according to claim 2, wherein said decompressing means decompresses the application program corresponding to the location range when location information of the mobile terminal acquired by said location-information acquiring means is found a prescribed number of times in succession in said location range stored on said correspondence table.

5. A mobile terminal according to claim 1, wherein said location-information acquiring means comprises a means to change/set the interval between acquisition of location of the mobile terminal.

6. A mobile terminal according to claim 1, wherein the mobile terminal comprises a use-of-application history table establishing the correspondence at least between an identifier of the application program and the location information of the mobile terminal acquired by said location information acquiring means and storing them when a user decompresses the application program and uses it.

7. A mobile terminal according to claim 6, wherein associated and stored on said use-of-application history table are an identifier of said application program, said location information, and time at which the user decompressed the application program and used it and/or day of the week on which the user decompressed the application program and used it.

8. A mobile terminal according to claim 6, wherein the mobile terminal comprises a means to determine whether or not at least the identifier of the application program and the data of the location information are automatically registered on said correspondence table by referring to contents of said use-of-application history table when the user decompresses the application program and uses it.

9. A mobile terminal according to claim 2, wherein an identifier of said application program, data of said location range, and data of time of the day and/or of day of the week of use are associated and stored on said correspondence table, and the application program corresponding to a particular location range is decompressed when the location information of the mobile terminal acquired by said location-information acquiring means is in the particular location range stored on said correspondence table and the time and/or the day of the week on that occasion corresponds to the time of the day and/or the day of the week of use corresponding to said particular location range.

10. A method for controlling a mobile terminal comprising a means to acquire location of the mobile terminal, wherein a compressed application program corresponding to the pre-registered particular location range is decompressed when the acquired location of the mobile terminal is found a prescribed plurality of number of times in succession in the pre-registered particular location range.

11. A method for controlling a mobile terminal according to claim 10, wherein a user can be notified by an indication on the display or a sound or a vibration when the compressed application program is decompressed.