Context-Sensitive Framework for Automatic Application Selection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users face challenges in finding and managing relevant mobile applications among millions, as they often provide similar functionality, making it difficult to decide which to download and use, and there is no efficient way to automatically launch the appropriate application based on the user's context.
Innovation Solution
A context-sensitive framework that uses context data, such as location, activity, and time, to identify and activate relevant applications, providing personalized data to the user without manual selection, and allows communication between applications for enhanced functionality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If users manually search and select applications among millions, then they can find relevant applications, but the time and effort required increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables automatic application selection and launch based on context data without requiring manual user intervention. The framework monitors user context (location, activity, time) and automatically identifies and launches relevant applications, allowing the system to serve itself rather than requiring continuous user input.
Solution Approach 2:
A contextual service acts as an intermediary between context data sources and applications. This mediator receives context data, processes it to determine relevant applications, and facilitates automatic application selection and launch, eliminating the need for direct manual user interaction with the application library.
2Adaptability or versatility
If multiple applications with similar functionality are available, then users have more choices, but the complexity of deciding which application to download increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses feedback from context data (user location, activity, time) to dynamically determine which applications are relevant. This feedback mechanism allows the system to filter through multiple available applications with similar functionality and automatically select the most appropriate one based on current user context, reducing selection complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The framework changes the parameters used for application selection from static user preferences to dynamic context-based parameters. By monitoring changes in context parameters (location, activity, time), the system automatically adapts application selection to current conditions, simplifying the decision process despite multiple similar applications being available.
3Reliability
If users download and install many applications to ensure availability, then application functionality is ensured, but the device storage and management complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-registering applications with the contextual service and pre-processing context data. This allows the system to have applications ready for automatic selection and launch without requiring them to be permanently installed on the device, ensuring availability while reducing storage requirements.
Data Source
AI summary
Functionality is disclosed herein for using a context sensitive framework to identify relevant applications to a current context and to provide data received from the relevant applications to a user. Instead of a user having to manually locate and launch an application, relevant applications determined by a contextual service may provide data in response to receiving the context data. The applications that are identified as relevant to the context determine the application data to provide to the contextual service. The contextual service selects at least a portion of the application data to provide for display within a user interface. In some configurations, the selected application data is displayed within a user interface that maintains a same look and feel regardless of the application data that is displayed.