Centralized Email Unseen Count Synchronization
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing email systems face complications in maintaining consistent unseen email message counts across multiple mobile devices, particularly in ensuring users are notified of new emails regardless of their access method or device.
Innovation Solution
A computer system that receives subscription data with a token ID and timestamp from mobile devices, determines new email arrivals, and sends push notifications to all subscribed devices with the number of unseen emails, updating the timestamp when an email is accessed on a different device.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If email push notifications are sent to multiple mobile devices, then users are informed of new emails across all devices, but maintaining consistent unseen email counts and timestamps becomes complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses a server as an intermediary to centralize the management of unseen email counts and timestamps. The server receives notifications from the email system, calculates the unseen count based on stored timestamps, and distributes this information to all subscribed mobile devices. This intermediary approach resolves the contradiction by providing a single source of truth that ensures consistency across multiple devices without requiring complex peer-to-peer synchronization mechanisms between the devices themselves.
Solution Approach 2:
The server performs multiple functions: it stores subscription data including token IDs and timestamps, calculates unseen email counts, manages push notifications, and synchronizes information across all devices. By consolidating these diverse functions in a single universal system, the patent avoids the complexity of implementing each function separately across multiple devices, thereby maintaining reliability while managing system complexity efficiently.
2Measurement precision
If the system tracks and updates timestamps for each device, then accurate unseen email counts are maintained, but the synchronization process across devices becomes more complex
Solution Approach 1:
The server acts as a central intermediary that stores and manages timestamps for all devices. Instead of each device independently tracking and synchronizing timestamps with others (which would create complex peer-to-peer synchronization), the server maintains the authoritative timestamp records and distributes updated information to all devices. This approach ensures measurement precision through centralized control while significantly reducing the synchronization complexity that would arise from distributed timestamp management.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements a feedback mechanism where the server continuously monitors email arrivals, updates timestamps, recalculates unseen counts, and pushes notifications back to devices. This closed-loop feedback ensures that timestamp accuracy is maintained without requiring devices to independently verify or synchronize with each other, thereby achieving precision while managing complexity through automated feedback-driven updates.
3Reliability
If push notifications are sent to all subscribed devices, then users receive consistent notifications across devices, but network traffic and system resources increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary actions by establishing subscription data including token IDs and timestamps before emails arrive. When emails are received, the server can immediately calculate unseen counts and send notifications without delay. This preliminary setup enables efficient, instantaneous notifications that maintain consistency across devices while minimizing the need for repeated polling or unnecessary network traffic, thereby reducing energy loss while preserving notification reliability.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of continuously polling devices for email status (which would generate constant network traffic), the system uses periodic push notifications triggered only when relevant events occur (new emails arriving). This event-driven periodic action ensures that notifications are sent consistently to all devices only when necessary, maintaining reliability while significantly reducing unnecessary network traffic and associated energy consumption compared to continuous synchronization approaches.
Data Source
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AI summary
Embodiments are directed to providing an indication of unseen email messages to a mobile device user, to establishing an unseen email message count and to maintaining a consistent unseen email message count across multiple mobile devices. In one scenario, a computer system receives subscription data that subscribes a user to email push notifications. The subscription data includes a token ID and a timestamp. The computer system determines that a new email message has arrived at the user's inbox and accesses the user's email inbox to determine the number of unseen email messages (which includes the number of email messages that have been received at the user's inbox and have not been viewed or marked as read using another email client since the time listed on the timestamp). The computer system also sends a push notification with the number of unseen email messages to each of the user's subscribed mobile devices.