Tethered Mobile App Package Creation and Automation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Small businesses lack resources and flexibility to create and maintain branded mobile apps, as modifying untethered apps to include specific features or branding elements is time-consuming and costly, and often introduces errors or inconsistencies, requiring significant effort and approval processes across multiple distribution servers.
Innovation Solution
A system that allows for the creation of an installable tethered mobile app package by receiving and modifying untethered app packages with tethering data, enabling association with a selected target, including new features or functions, and automating the submission to distribution servers, thereby simplifying the process of branding and feature integration.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a third-party developer is contracted to create a custom mobile app for a target, then the app can be tailored with specific branding elements and features, but the cost and time required to create and maintain the app increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the mobile app into two distinct components: a base untethered app developed by third-party developers, and a tethering layer that adds target-specific branding and features. This segmentation allows the complex customization needs to be isolated in the tethering component while the base app remains simple and reusable across multiple targets.
Solution Approach 2:
The untethered mobile app is designed to be universal and multi-functional, capable of serving multiple different targets simultaneously. By making the base app universally applicable, the patent reduces the need for separate custom developments for each target, thereby lowering overall development complexity and cost.
2Adaptability or versatility
If an untethered mobile app is modified to include target-specific branding elements and features, then the app becomes associated with a particular target, but the modification process introduces errors and inconsistencies requiring significant time and approval processes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-configuring the untethered app with standardized branding elements and feature structures that can be systematically applied to multiple targets. This pre-preparation ensures consistency across all tethered versions while reducing the need for error-prone manual modifications.
Solution Approach 2:
The tethering process essentially creates a copy of the untethered app with target-specific modifications applied through automated processes. This copying approach, combined with standardized templates, ensures that all tethered apps maintain consistency with the original design while incorporating necessary target-specific elements.
3Adaptability or versatility
If the same untethered mobile app is modified for multiple different targets, then each target receives a customized app, but the time required for each target to receive their tethered version increases due to repeated modification and approval processes
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary actions by pre-configuring the untethered app with all necessary structural elements, branding templates, and feature frameworks before deployment. This advance preparation enables rapid tethering to multiple targets without repeating the full modification and approval process for each one.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent utilizes parameter changes to efficiently adapt the untethered app for multiple targets. By modifying specific parameters such as branding elements, target identifiers, and configuration settings through automated processes, the patent can rapidly deploy customized versions to numerous targets simultaneously, dramatically reducing deployment time.
4Duration of action of stationary object
If a target contracts a third-party developer for long-term app maintenance, then updates and upgrades can be provided, but the arrangement becomes inflexible and expensive
Solution Approach 1:
The untethered mobile app is designed as a universal platform that can serve multiple targets simultaneously, allowing third-party developers to maintain a single app version rather than managing separate long-term contracts with each target. This universal approach provides both long-term sustainability and flexibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements a dynamic tethering system where targets can be added, removed, or modified without requiring long-term contractual commitments. This dynamic approach allows targets to flexibly adopt and abandon tethered apps as needed, eliminating the inflexibility associated with long-term maintenance contracts.
Data Source
AI summary
A modified computer program for a mobile device, tethered for use with a specific server, including tethering data (metadata tethered to the specific server; features or functions tethered to the specific server). Servers can provide databases, remote processing or storage, virtual machines, or specialized hardware or software that performs specific functions. A method for developers to submit mobile apps for review and tethering by agents, who examine descriptions of, and possibly try out, those mobile apps. Agents can determine whether to modify a mobile app to tether (or re-tether) it, and if so, can provide tethering data. The system either recognize elements in the untethered mobile app that can be modified, and modify them to tether it; or, the system provides software hooks for execution from within the mobile app. The system automatically submits the tethered mobile app to an app store. Tethered mobile apps are modified to both end-user login and login to the tethered server at once. The system automatically recognizes when end-users download and use tethered mobile apps, alerts the developer of the mobile app, and automates payment from the server to the developer.