Evaluating application compatibility

• US 9,189,220 B2
• Filed: 07/02/2012
• Issued: 11/17/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 07/02/2012
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Amazon.com, Inc.)
• Inventors: Gill, Sunbir, Rajagopalan, Krishna K., Jones, Matthew A., Ko, Kenneth Chung Kay
• Primary Examiner(s): Wu, Qing
• Assistant Examiner(s): KEPNANG, GILLES R
• Application Number:
  US13/540,045
• Publication Number:
  US 20140007057A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,233 Days
• Field of Search: 455/404.1, 455/414.1, 455/456.3, 705/27.1, 705/37, 707/5, 707/632, 707/770, 707/792, 707/3, 709/203, 711/133, 717/174, 717/170, 717/172, 717/127, 715/735
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/61 Installation
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/445 Program loading or initiating bootstrapping G06F9/4401; security arrangements for program loading or initiating G06F21/57
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44505 Configuring for program initiating, e.g. using registry, configuration files
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/44589 Program code verification, e.g. Java bytecode verification, proof-carrying code high-level semantic checks G06F8/43; testing and debugging software G06F11/36

Abstract

Disclosed are various embodiments for evaluating application compatibility with computing devices. A set of applications is determined and then filtered to exclude those applications which are incompatible with a particular client. The filtering is performed by determining a capability set for the client and performing an evaluation of a compatibility expression for each application using the capability set to determine whether each application is compatible with the client. The filtered set of applications is returned and may be used in user interfaces associated with an application marketplace system.

Claims

1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying a program executable in a computing device, comprising:

code that obtains a set of mobile applications from a developer;

code that determines whether individual applications of the set of mobile applications are compatible with a mobile device according to respective evaluation results, configured to;

obtain a set of capabilities associated with the mobile device;

obtain a corresponding compatibility expression for the individual applications of the set of mobile applications, the compatibility expression comprising at least one term in a postfix expression; and

send a single batch containing a plurality of evaluation requests to a compatibility evaluation service over a network, wherein each individual evaluation request of the single batch of evaluation requests specifies a corresponding identifier for a respective one of the set of mobile applications and an identifier for the set of capabilities, the compatibility evaluation service being configured to;

access a plurality of attribute-value pairs belonging to the set of capabilities;

substitute a respective value from an individual attribute-value pair of the plurality of attribute-value pairs for an individual variable of a plurality of operands in the corresponding compatibility expression, wherein the corresponding compatibility expression further comprises an operand associated with either the respective value or the individual variable; and

perform an evaluation of the corresponding compatibility expression, based, at least in part, on the set of capabilities to produce a respective evaluation result, the evaluation comprising;

determining whether the at least one term is an operator or an operand;

pushing the operand onto a stack in response to determining that the at least one term is an operand;

popping a number of operands from the stack in response to determining that the at least one term is an operator; and

pushing a result onto the stack;

code that caches the result and utilizes the cached result, in lieu of a future batch of new evaluation requests;

code that filters the set of mobile applications to exclude mobile applications that are incompatible with the mobile device; and

code that generates a user interface that facilitates an acquisition of the mobile application by a user for installation on the mobile device.

2. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the code that is configured to obtain the set of capabilities is further configured to load the set of capabilities from a data store according to an identifier for set of capabilities.

3. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the evaluation result is based, at least in part, on the mobile device being associated with a particular wireless carrier, wherein the individual applications of the set of mobile applications are not compatible when the mobile device is associated with a wireless carrier other than the particular wireless carrier.

4. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the code that obtains a set of mobile applications from a developer further comprises code that sends a request including a search query that, when executed, produces the set of mobile applications.

5. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, further comprising code that caches the set of applications that has been filtered.

6. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 5, further comprising code that generates another user interface configured to present at least one application from the set of applications that has been cached.

7. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the code that obtains the corresponding compatibility expression is configured to obtain the corresponding compatibility expression based, at least in part, on a plurality of business rules.

8. A system, comprising:

at least one computing device; and

at least one application executable in the at least one computing device, the at least one application comprising;

logic that determines whether individual applications of a set of applications are compatible with a particular client according to respective evaluation results, configured to;

determine a capability set for the particular client;

obtain a corresponding compatibility expression for the individual applications of the set of applications, the corresponding compatibility expression comprising a plurality of terms in a postfix expression; and

send a single batch containing a plurality of evaluation requests to a compatibility evaluation service over a network, wherein each individual evaluation request of the single batch of evaluation requests specifies a corresponding identifier for a respective one of the set of applications and an identifier for the capability set, the compatibility evaluation service being configured to;

access a plurality of attribute-value pairs belonging to the capability set;

substitute a respective value from an individual attribute-value pair of the plurality of attribute-value pairs for an individual variable of a plurality of operands in the corresponding compatibility expression, wherein the corresponding compatibility expression further comprises an operand associated with either the respective value or the individual variable; and

perform an evaluation of the corresponding compatibility expression, based, at least in part, on the capability set to produce a respective evaluation result, the evaluation comprising;

 

determining whether a term of the plurality of terms is an operand or an operator;

 

pushing the operand onto a stack in response to determining that the term is an operand;

 

popping a number of operands from the stack in response to determining that the term is an operator; and

 

pushing a result onto the stack;

logic that caches the result and utilizes the cached result, in lieu of a future batch of new evaluation requests;

logic that filters the set of applications to exclude applications that are incompatible with the particular client; and

logic that returns the set of applications that has been filtered.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the at least one application further comprises logic that generates a user interface to facilitate a purchase of any of the set of applications that has been filtered, the applications that are incompatible with the particular client being excluded from selection through the user interface.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the applications that are incompatible with the particular client are excluded from being surfaced in the user interface.

11. The system of claim 9, wherein the at least one application further comprises logic that generates another user interface configured to present at least one application of the set of applications that has been cached.

12. The system of claim 8, wherein the set of applications corresponds to a set of mobile applications and the client corresponds to a mobile device.

13. The system of claim 8, wherein the at least one application further comprises:

logic that obtains a developer-provided application;

logic that automatically determines a plurality of application requirements for the developer-provided application;

logic that automatically generates the corresponding compatibility expression for the developer-provided application based, at least in part, on the application requirements; and

logic that stores the corresponding compatibility expression in association with the developer-provided application.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the logic that automatically generates the corresponding compatibility expression is configured to generate the corresponding compatibility expression based, at least in part, on a plurality of business rules.

15. The system of claim 8, wherein the at least one application further comprises:

logic that obtains the capability set from the particular client;

logic that determines whether the capability set matches any stored capability set in a data store;

logic that stores the capability set in the data store in response to determining that the capability set does not match any stored capability set in the data store; and

logic that associates the identifier for the capability set with the particular client.

16. The system of claim 8, wherein the at least one application further comprises logic that obtains a search query from a user, and the logic that determines the set of applications is configured to determine the set of applications based at least in part on executing the search query.

17. The system of claim 8, wherein the evaluation further includes substituting a respective constant from the capability set for individual ones of a plurality of operand variables in the corresponding compatibility expression.

18. The system of claim 8, wherein the evaluation of the corresponding compatibility expression further comprises:

for individual terms of the plurality of terms in the postfix expression;

generating a result by applying the operator to the number of operands; and

pushing the result onto the stack.

19. A method, comprising:

obtaining, in a client computing device, a set of capabilities associated with the client computing device;

obtaining, in the client computing device, a list of applications from an application marketplace system;

determining, in the client computing device, whether individual applications of the list of applications are compatible with the client computing device according to respective evaluation results, the determining comprising;

obtaining, in the client computing device, a corresponding compatibility expression for the individual applications of the list of applications, the corresponding compatibility expression comprising a plurality of terms in a postfix expression;

sending, in the client computing device, a single batch containing a plurality of evaluation requests to a compatibility evaluation service over a network, wherein each individual evaluation request of the single batch of evaluation requests specifies a corresponding identifier for a respective one of the list of applications and an identifier for the set of capabilities, the compatibility evaluation service being configured to;

access a plurality of attribute-value pairs belonging to the set of capabilities;

substitute a respective value from an individual attribute-value pair of the plurality of attribute-value pairs for an individual variable of a plurality of operands in the corresponding compatibility expression, wherein the corresponding compatibility expression further comprises an operand associated with either the respective value or the individual variable; and

perform an evaluation of the corresponding capability expression, based, at least in part, on the set of capabilities to produce a respective evaluation result, the evaluation comprising;

determining whether a term in the plurality of terms is an operand or an operator;

pushing the operand onto a stack in response to determining that the term is an operand;

popping a number of operands from the stack in response to determining that the term is an operator; and

pushing a result onto the stack;

caching, in the client computing device, the result and utilizing the cached result, in lieu of a future batch of new evaluation requests;

filtering, in the client computing device, the list of applications to exclude applications that are incompatible with the client computing device; and

rendering, in the client computing device, a user interface configured to present the list of applications that has been filtered.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the request further includes at least one mutable capability characteristic of the client computing device.

21. The method of claim 20, wherein the at least one mutable capability characteristic includes an operating system version.

22. The method of claim 20, wherein the at least one mutable capability characteristic includes a current wireless carrier for the client computing device.

23. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

periodically discovering, in the client computing device, the set of capabilities for the client computing device; and

registering, in the client computing device, the set of capabilities that has been discovered with the application marketplace system.

24. The method of claim 19, wherein the user interface is configured to facilitate an acquisition of any of the list of applications for installation on the client computing device.

25. The method of claim 19, wherein the request includes a search query that, when executed in the application marketplace system, produces the list of applications.

26. The method of claim 19, further comprising:

caching, in the client computing device, the list of applications that has been filtered; and

rendering, in the client computing device, another user interface configured to present at least one application from the list of applications that has been cached.