Installation of Software Applications on Mobile Devices Based on Positions Thereof

• US 20150378709A1
• Filed: 06/03/2015
• Published: 12/31/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 06/27/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Ferrara, Filomena, Ragusa, Roberto, D'Amico, Alessio, Loppini, Fabrizio, Morucci, Marco
• Granted Patent: US 9,817,649 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/62 Uninstallation
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 Service provisioning or reconfiguring
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/08 Mobility data transfer
• CPC Class Codes: Y02D 10/00 Energy efficient computing, e.g. low power processors, power management or thermal management

Abstract

A solution for installing software applications on a mobile computing device is proposed. A corresponding method comprises monitoring a position of the mobile computing device, selecting one or more software applications available to be installed on the mobile computing device according to the position of the mobile computing device, and installing the selected software applications in a container of the mobile computing device providing an execution environment for the selected software applications with controlled access to one or more resources of the mobile computing device.

Claims

1. A method for installing software applications on a mobile computing device, the method comprising:

monitoring a position of the mobile computing device;

selecting one or more software applications available to be installed on the mobile computing device according to the position of the mobile computing device; and

installing the selected software applications in a container of the mobile computing device providing an execution environment for the selected software applications with controlled access to one or more resources of the mobile computing device.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein said installing the selected software applications comprises:

installing the selected software applications in a silent mode by accepting each authorization request to access the resources of the mobile computing device by the selected software applications.

3. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

defining one or more control policies; and

configuring the container to limit the access to the resources of the mobile computing device according to the control policies.

4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

receiving a reset command; and

resetting the container thereby removing the selected software applications installed on the mobile computing device in response to the reset command.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

storing a local list of the software applications on the mobile computing device, for each software application the local list comprising an indication of a selection condition based on the position of the mobile computing device;

said selecting one or more software applications comprising;

selecting the software applications whose selection condition is fulfilled by the position of the mobile computing device.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein said storing a local list comprises:

synchronizing the local list with at least one remote list.

7. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

defining one or more installation rules; and

enabling the installation of the selected software applications according to the installation rules.

8. The method according to claim 7, wherein at least part of the installation rules are based on one or more features of the software applications, said enabling the installation of the selected software applications comprising:

downloading an indication of the features of each selected software application onto the mobile computing device; and

enabling the installation of each selected software application whose features fulfill the installation rules.

9. The method according to claim 7, wherein at least part of the installation rules are based on a status of one or more selected resources of the mobile computing device, said enabling the installation of the selected software applications comprising:

determining the status of the selected resources; and

enabling the installation of the selected software applications in response to the status of the selected resources fulfilling the installation rules.

10. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

de-selecting one or more of the selected software applications installed on the mobile computing device according to the position of the mobile computing device; and

removing the de-selected software applications from the mobile computing device.

11. The method according to claim 10, further comprising:

defining one or more removal policies;

said removing the de-selected software applications from the mobile computing device comprising;

removing the de-selected software applications from the mobile computing device according to the removal policies.

12. The method according to claim 10, wherein said removing the de-selected software applications comprises:

disabling each de-selected software application in response to the de-selected software application remaining deselected for a disabling interval; and

uninstalling each disabled software application in response to the disabled software application remaining disabled for an uninstalling interval;

the method further comprising;

enabling each disabled software application in response to the selection of the disabled software application within the uninstalling interval.

13. The method according to claim 10, further comprising:

saving application data associated with each de-selected software application before the removing thereof; and

restoring the application data associated with each selected software application after the installing thereof.

14. A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium embodying a computer program configured to cause a computing system to perform the method according to claim 1 when the computer program is executed on the computing system.

15. A data processing system comprising a data processor coupled to a memory having program code stored therein that is operable to perform, when executed by the data processor, the method according to claim 1.