Method and apparatus for zero-footprint phone application development

A method of supporting development of a phone application code for a computer based phone application platform having a network interface and a telephone interface, the method comprising:

• receiving the phone application code at the computer based phone application platform over the network interface from a remote computer via a development platform web server and using HTTP;
• associating the phone application code with a telephone number for communicating with the telephone interface;
• and
• at the computer based phone application platform, responsive to receiving a telephone call via the telephone number,
• executing the phone application code;
• presenting an audio output over the telephone interface;
• and
• presenting a call flow to the remote computer over the network interface, the call flow tracking a flow of execution for a phone call.

A method of supporting development of a phone application code for a computer based phone application platform having a network interface and a telephone interface, the method comprising:

• receiving at the computer based phone application platform a reference to the phone application code over the network interface from a remote computer via a development platform web server and using a web protocol;
• associating the phone application code with a telephone number for communicating with the telephone interface using the reference;
• and
• at the computer based phone application platform, responsive to receiving a telephone call via the telephone number,
• executing the phone application code;
• presenting an audio output over the telephone interface;
• and
• presenting a call flow to the remote computer over the network interface via the development platform web server and using the web protocol, the call flow tracking a flow of execution for a phone call.

A method of supporting remotely hosted phone application development for a phone application platform using a first computer system, the first computer system supporting a web interface, the method comprising:

• receiving at the first computer system over the web interface a uniform resource identifier (URI) from a second computer system, the URI corresponding to a location of a phone application;
• at the first computer system, responsive to the receiving the URI, sending a first message to the phone application platform using the first computer system, the first message corresponding to a request to make the phone application located at the URI available on the phone application platform at a telephone number;
• and
• upon receiving a request from the second computer system on the first computer system, presenting to the second computer debugging information generated by calls to the telephone number for the phone application on the phone application platform, wherein the debugging information includes a flow of execution for the calls.

An apparatus for developing a phone application code, the apparatus comprising:

• a network interface for receiving a reference to the phone application code, the network interface using a web protocol;
• a telephone interface to send and receive audio signals to and from a telephone;
• and
• a control subsystem to control the network interface and the telephone interface, the control subsystem including at least one program for
• receiving a reference to the phone application code over the network interface from a remote computer using the web protocol;
• associating the phone application code with a telephone number for communicating with the telephone interface using the reference, and
• responsive to receiving a telephone call via the telephone number, executing the phone application code, presenting an audio output over the telephone interface, and presenting a call flow to the remote computer over the network interface, the call flow tracking a flow of execution for the telephone call.

An apparatus for remotely hosted phone application development using a first computer system, the apparatus comprising:

• means for receiving at the first computer system over a web interface a uniform resource identifier (URI) from a second computer system, the URI corresponding to the location of a phone application;
• means for sending a first message to a phone application platform responsive to the receiving the URI, using the first computer system, the first message corresponding to a request to make the phone application located at the URI available on the phone application platform at a telephone number;
• and
• means for presenting to the second computer system a call flow generated by calls to the telephone number for the phone application on the phone application platform upon receiving a request from the second computer system, the call flow tracking a flow of execution for the calls.