Optimizing use of location services in mobile applications to improve battery consumption

• US 20170228011A1
• Filed: 02/09/2016
• Published: 08/10/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 02/09/2016
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Abadi, Aharon, Abadi, Moria, Nisenson, Mordechai
• Granted Patent: US 10,372,194 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3215 Monitoring of peripheral devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/3234 Power saving characterised by the action undertaken
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/325 Power saving in peripheral device
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/3664 Environments for testing or debugging software
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/33 Intelligent editors
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/433 Dependency analysis; Data or control flow analysis
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/52 Binary to binary
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/30145 Instruction analysis, e.g. decoding, instruction word fields
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/02 Services making use of location information

Abstract

A method for optimizing use of location services in mobile applications, comprising: analyzing a computer code executable on a processor of a mobile device; identifying in the computer code program instructions for receiving location data from at least one location service device of the mobile device; analyzing the program instructions according to a set of location request rules to identify program instructions violating at least one of the location request rules; and providing at least one suggested change to the program instructions according to the at least one of the location request rules.

Claims

1. A method for optimizing use of location services in mobile applications, comprising:

analyzing a computer code executable on a processor of a mobile device;

identifying in said computer code program instructions for receiving location data from at least one location service device of said mobile device;

analyzing said program instructions according to a set of location request rules to identify program instructions violating at least one of said location request rules; and

providing at least one suggested change to said program instructions according to said at least one of said location request rules.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said computer code is edited by a graphical user interface (GUI) of an integrated development environment (IDE) executed on a client terminal.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein said at least one suggested change is presented in said GUI.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said computer code is included in a software development kit (SDK) for mobile applications.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said computer code is included in a mobile application currently installed on said mobile device.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said at least one location service device includes global positioning system (GPS).

7. The method of claim 1, wherein said at least one location service device includes network location service.

8. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

automatically changing said computer code according to said at least one suggested change.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein said identifying includes representing said computer code as a finite state machine (FSM).

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said identifying includes representing at least parts of said computer code with intermediate representation (IR).

11. The method of claim 10, wherein said intermediate representation (IR) is one of abstract syntax tree (AST), control flow graph (CFG), static single assignment form (SSA) and program dependence graph (PDG).

12. The method of claim 1, wherein said analyzing of said program instructions includes at least one of dynamic profiler, symbolic execution and control flow analysis.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein said set of location request rules includes a rule for requesting location in proximity to a use of said location in said computer code.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein said set of location request rules includes a rule for using network location service instead of GPS location service when possible.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein said set of location request rules includes a rule for using existing location information instead of requesting location updates received from said at least one location service device.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein said set of location request rules includes a rule for maximal frequency of location updates received from said at least one location service device.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein said suggested change includes adding a command to stop requesting location.

18. A computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions adapted to perform the method of claim 1.

19. A system for optimizing use of location services in mobile applications, comprising:

a memory storing a set of location request rules;

a code store storing a code of an application; and

at least one processor coupled to the imager, the memory and the program store for executing the stored code, the code comprising;

code instructions to analyze a computer code executable on a processor of a mobile device;

code instructions to identify in said computer code program instructions for receiving location data from at least one location service device of said mobile device;

code instructions to analyze said program instructions according to said set of location request rules to identify program instructions violating at least one of said location request rules; and

code instructions to provide at least one suggested change to said program instructions according to said at least one of said location request rules.

20. A software program product for optimizing use of location services in mobile applications, comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage medium;

first program instructions for analyzing a computer code executable on a processor of a mobile device;

second program instructions for identifying in said computer code program instructions for receiving location data from at least one location service device of said mobile device;

third program instructions for analyzing said program instructions according to a set of location request rules to identify program instructions violating at least one of said location request rules; and

fourth program instructions for providing at least one suggested change to said program instructions according to said at least one of said location request rules;

wherein said first, second, third and fourth program instructions are executed by at least one computerized processor from said non-transitory computer readable storage medium.