Crash based incompatibility prediction for classes of mobile devices crash data

• US 8,516,308 B1
• Filed: 03/09/2011
• Issued: 08/20/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 03/09/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Gill, Sunbir, Okereke, Mekka C., Jones, Matthew A., Capps, Kenley B., Sodt, David R.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ehne, Charles
• Application Number:
  US13/044,483
• Time in Patent Office: 895 Days
• Field of Search: 714/26, 714/38.1, 717/174, 717/176, 717/178
• US Class Current: 714/38.1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/0742 in a data processing system embedded in a mobile device, e.g. mobile phones, handheld devices
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 11/079 Root cause analysis, i.e. error or fault diagnosis in a hardware test environment G06F11/22; in a software test environment G06F11/36
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/34 involving the movement of software or configuration parameters network booting or remote initial program loading [RIPL] G06F9/4416
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/40 for recovering from a failure of a protocol instance or entity, e.g. service redundancy protocols, protocol state redundancy or protocol service redirection management of faults, events, alarms or notifications in data switching networks H04L41/06
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/04 Arrangements for maintaining operational condition
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/50 Service provisioning or reconfiguring
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 4/60 Subscription-based services using application servers or record carriers, e.g. SIM application toolkits
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/18 Processing of user or subscriber data, e.g. subscribed services, user preferences or user profiles; Transfer of user or subscriber data

Abstract

A network application system provides mobile devices with personalized recommendations of applications based at least in part on the device resources of the mobile devices. Device resources may be detected through an interrogation process performed on the mobile device by a mobile application store client, and/or may be determined based on metadata information contained in a photograph file taken by the mobile device and transmitted to the network application system. The network application system gathers crash data based on incidences of applications crashing on mobile devices in order to detect incompatibilities between applications and device resources. The system may then update application requirements data so that users are not presented with applications likely to crash on their mobile devices. The system may also inform an application'"'"'s developer of a detected incompatibility so that a new, compatible version may quickly be available to users.

Claims

1. A method of assessing incompatibility between a mobile device application and mobile devices, the method comprising:

providing users access to an electronic catalog, said electronic catalog providing functionality for identifying and downloading mobile device applications;

transmitting, to a mobile device, a crash detection component configured to detect when a mobile device application on the mobile device fails to operate properly;

receiving, from the mobile device, crash report data, said crash report data reflective of the identity of a mobile device application which failed to operate properly on the mobile device, and data reflective of device resources of the mobile device;

analyzing the crash report data, in conjunction with crash report data obtained from other mobile devices, to assess, for a class of mobile devices, whether the mobile application is compatible with said class;

incorporating information reflective of a result of said assessment into at least one page of the electronic catalog;

said method performed by a computing system that comprises one or more physical servers.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said class of mobile devices comprises at least one of (1) mobile devices having a particular resource (2) mobile devices lacking a particular resource or (3) mobile devices having a particular setting or configuration of a particular resource.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said class of mobile devices comprises mobile devices of a particular model.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising automatically updating compatibility data to reflect that the mobile device application has been detected as being incompatible with the mobile device resource.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising personalizing a page of the electronic catalog for a user based on the updated compatibility data.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising, by said computing system, notifying a developer of the mobile device application of the detected incompatibility.

7. The method of claim 1, further comprising notifying users with mobile devices which include the mobile device application and the device resource of the detected incompatibility.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said crash detection component is configured to detect that the mobile device application failed to operate properly by use of an exception handler.

9. The method of claim 2, wherein said resource comprises one or more of the resources selected from a group consisting of display resolution, display size, display pixel density, display color range, presence of a physical keyboard, presence of a virtual keyboard, presence of a touch-sensitive display screen, presence of a multi-touch compatible display, presence of a three-dimensional display, presence of a projector, presence of an external video output port, presence of a trackball, presence of a D-pad, presence of a microphone, presence of speakers, presence of a cellular voice radio, presence of a cellular data radio, type of cellular voice radio, type of cellular data radio, presence of a Bluetooth radio, version of Bluetooth radio, presence of a Wi-Fi radio, type of Wi-Fi radio, presence of an accelerometer, presence of a gyroscope, presence of a Global Positioning System, presence of a front-facing camera, megapixel value of a camera, presence of a particular installed operating system, version of installed operating system, presence of a particular device driver, presence of a particular software library, and use of a particular mobile carrier.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein said mobile device resource comprises a plurality of mobile device resources such that it is determined whether that that plurality of mobile device resources, in combination, are correlated with an increased likelihood of the mobile device application failing to operate properly.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein automatically analyzing the crash report occurs at least in part as a result of at least one of (1) a time interval, (2) the number of crash reports received, (3) the number of crash reports received within a certain timeframe, (4) the number of crash reports received for an mobile device application, and (5) the number of crash reports received for a mobile device application relative to the number of copies of the mobile device application which have been transferred to users.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein automatically analyzing the crash data comprises assigning weight values to crash data, said weight values affecting the likelihood of detecting a correlation between said device resource and said mobile device application failing to operate properly.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein said weight values relate to at least one of (1) the severity of the failure to operate properly, (2) the type of user device application which failed to operate properly, (3) when the failure to operate properly occurred, and (4) the mobile device on which the mobile device application failed to operate properly.

14. A system for assessing incompatibility between a mobile device application and mobile devices, the system comprising:

a system configured to assess incompatibility between a mobile device application and mobile devices, the system comprising;

a server system comprising one or more physical servers, said server system configured to provide users access to an electronic catalog, said electronic catalog providing functionality for identifying and downloading mobile device applications, said server system additional configured to transmit, to mobile devices, a crash detection component configured to detect when a mobile device application on a mobile device fails to operate properly;

a data repository that stores crash report data received from mobile devices, said crash report data reflective of the identity of a mobile device application which failed to operate properly on the mobile device, and data reflective of device resources of the mobile device; and

an analysis system configured to automatically analyze the crash report data, in conjunction with crash report data obtained from other mobile devices, to assess, for a class of mobile devices, whether the mobile application is compatible with said class.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein said class of mobile devices comprises at least one of (1) mobile devices having a particular resource (2) mobile devices lacking a particular resource or (3) mobile devices having a particular setting or configuration of a particular resource.

16. The system of claim 14, wherein said class of mobile devices comprises mobile devices of a particular model.

17. The system of claim 14, further comprising an update system configured to automatically update compatibility data to reflect that the mobile device application has been detected as being incompatible with the mobile device resource.

18. The system of claim 14, further comprising a personalization system configured to personalize a page of the electronic catalog for a user based on the updated compatibility data.

19. The system of claim 14, further comprising a notification system configured to notify the developer of the mobile device application of the detected incompatibility.

20. The system of claim 14, further comprising a notification system configured to notify users with mobile devices which include the mobile device application and the device resource of the detected incompatibility.

21. The system of claim 14, wherein said crash detection component is configured to detect that the mobile device application failed to operate properly by use of an exception handler.

22. The system of claim 14, wherein said mobile device'"'"'s resource comprises one or more of the resources selected from a group consisting of display resolution, display size, display pixel density, display color range, presence of a physical keyboard, presence of a virtual keyboard, presence of a touch-sensitive display screen, presence of a multi-touch compatible display, presence of a three-dimensional display, presence of a projector, presence of an external video output port, presence of a trackball, presence of a D-pad, presence of a microphone, presence of speakers, presence of a cellular voice radio, presence of a cellular data radio, type of cellular voice radio, type of cellular data radio, presence of a Bluetooth radio, version of Bluetooth radio, presence of a Wi-Fi radio, type of Wi-Fi radio, presence of an accelerometer, presence of a gyroscope, presence of a Global Positioning System, presence of a front-facing camera, megapixel value of a camera, presence of a particular installed operating system, version of installed operating system, presence of a particular device driver, presence of a particular software library, and use of a particular mobile carrier.

23. The system of claim 14, wherein said mobile device resource comprises a plurality of mobile device resources such that it is determined whether that that plurality of mobile device resources, in combination, are correlated with an increased likelihood of the mobile device application failing to operate properly.

24. The system of claim 14, wherein the analysis system is configured to begin automatically analyze the crash report at least in part on at least one of (1) a time interval, (2) the number of crash reports received, (3) the number of crash reports received within a certain timeframe, (4) the number of crash reports received for an mobile device application, and (5) the number of crash reports received for a mobile device application relative to the number of copies of the mobile device application which have been transferred to users.

25. The system of claim 14, wherein the analysis system is configured automatically analyze the crash data by assigning weight values to crash data, said weight values affecting the likelihood of detecting a correlation between said device resource and said mobile device application failing to operate properly.

26. The system of claim 25, wherein said weight values relate to at least one of (1) the severity of the failure to operate properly, (2) the type of user device application which failed to operate properly, (3) when the failure to operate properly occurred, and (4) the mobile device on which the mobile device application failed to operate properly.