Portal application as authenticator

A method for using a shell application to authenticate into a plurality of remote applications, the method comprising:

• authenticating a user at a shell application using an authentication protocol, said authentication protocol comprising an authentication token, said shell application executing on a mobile device, the shell application comprising a plurality of user preferences;
• upon authenticating, displaying on a display, at the shell application, to the user, a plurality of mobile applications, the plurality of mobile applications comprising a first subset of the plurality of mobile applications and a second subset of the plurality of mobile applications, wherein:
• each mobile application, included in the plurality of mobile applications, comprises a unique set of authentication credentials;
• and
• the user is, at least partially, authenticatable into the plurality of mobile applications using the authentication protocol at the shell application;
• displaying, on the display, an unlocked symbol on each mobile application included in the first subset of the plurality of mobile applications, said unlocked symbol indicating that the authentication protocol comprises sufficient authentication data for enabling the shell application to access each mobile application included in the first subset of the plurality of mobile applications without additional authentication data;
• displaying, on the display, a locked symbol on each mobile application included in the second subset of the plurality of mobile applications, said locked symbol indicating that the authentication protocol fails to include sufficient authentication data for enabling the shell application to access each mobile application included in the second plurality of mobile applications without additional authentication data;
• receiving a selection of a mobile application at the shell application, the selection being received from the user, said selected mobile application being selected from the plurality of mobile applications, the selection being of a selected mobile application;
• when the selected mobile application is included in the second subset of the plurality of mobile applications, requesting, from the user, the additional authentication data corresponding to the unique set of authentication credentials of the selected mobile application;
• when the selected mobile application is included in the second subset of the plurality of mobile applications, upon receipt, from the user, of the additional authentication data corresponding to the unique set of authentication credentials of the selected mobile application, porting the user from the shell application into the selected mobile application;
• when the selected mobile application is included in the first subset of the plurality of mobile applications, porting the user directly from the shell application into the selected mobile application;
• launching and streaming, on the display, the selected mobile application, the selected mobile application being stored in a cloud location, from the cloud location into an invisible application window within the shell application;
• and
• enabling the user to interact with selected mobile application via the shell application, wherein:
• the shell application is silent to the user upon launching and streaming the selected mobile application;
• and
• the shell application ports the plurality of user preferences into the selected mobile application thus creating a user-customized selected mobile application.