Inter-application communication on mobile platforms
AssigneeVMware, Inc.
InventorsBrian PARTRIDGE, Harish DHURVASULA
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Applications executing in a mobile device utilize a protocol for inter-application communication to overcome restrictions of a sandboxed environment. Applications advertise their exposed capabilities using structured definition files, which are consumed by other applications. Applications can invoke the advertised capabilities by exchanging inter-application communication (IAC) messages in the form of URLs or other platform-specific mechanisms. URL messages are formatted according to parameters and URL schemes specified by the provided definition files.
Claims20
A method for inter-application communication on a mobile device having an operating system that provides a sandboxed environment, the method comprising:
- retrieving, at a first application executing on the mobile device, a definition for functionality provided by another application executable on the mobile device;
- generating a first URL string based on the retrieved definition for the functionality;
- and
- invoking functionality of a second application installed on the mobile device by opening the first URL string using a system call of the operating system of the mobile device.
A method for inter-application communication on a mobile device having an operating system that provides a sandboxed environment, the method comprising:
- transmitting, at a first application executing on the mobile device, a definition for functionality provided by the first application, wherein the definition specifies a URL scheme associated with the first application;
- receiving a request, from the operating system, to handle opening a first URL string generated by a second application installed on the mobile device;
- and
- executing a handler method associated with the functionality of the first application.
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising instructions that, when executed in a computing device, for providing inter-application communication on a mobile device having an operating system that provides a sandboxed environment, by performing the steps of:
- retrieving, at a first application executing on the mobile device, a definition for functionality provided by another application executable on the mobile device;
- generating a first URL string based on the retrieved definition for the functionality;
- and
- invoking functionality of a second application installed on the mobile device by opening the first URL string using a system call of the operating system of the mobile device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.