KR101001079B1 - Application providing method and system for notifying terminal support information - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to an application providing system and method for notifying whether a terminal supports the application when the application is provided to the mobile communication terminal.

According to the present invention, an application providing method for notifying whether a terminal supports the application when providing an application to a mobile communication terminal in a mobile communication system, the method comprising: (a) selecting an application to download from the mobile communication terminal and receiving a download request; (b) extracting terminal information of the mobile communication terminal; (c) checking whether the selected application supports the terminal based on the extracted terminal information; And (d) providing the corresponding information to the mobile communication terminal if it is not confirmed that the application is supported. The application providing method of notifying whether the terminal supports the information is disclosed.

Mobile communication, application, support, notice

Description

Method and system for providing application by warning terminal compatibility information

The present invention relates to a service for providing an application to a mobile communication terminal in a mobile communication system. More particularly, the present invention relates to an application providing system and a method for notifying whether a terminal supports the application.

With the recent rapid development of electronic engineering and communication engineering, mobile communication terminals have various functions. That is, with the rapid development of wireless communication and data processing technology, people can use not only voice calls but also Internet access, video communication and video message transmission using mobile communication terminals. Also, due to the rapid spread of mobile communication terminals, mobile communication terminals are becoming an essential means of communication in modern life, such as a considerable amount of communication occurring in human relations through mobile communication terminals.

With the improvement of the performance or function of the mobile communication terminal, users began to use various contents or applications through the terminal, and these contents and applications are downloaded through the mobile communication system. In addition, according to this trend, mobile communication companies develop and provide various contents and applications, or provide applications developed by external application development companies to mobile communication users through the system. Nowadays, applications developed by a content provider (CP) affiliated with a mobile communication company occupy most of the applications provided by a mobile communication system, rather than applications developed by a mobile communication company.

In addition, the types of mobile communication terminals that are currently released and used are very diverse, and it is difficult to develop applications that can be supported by all terminals. Therefore, all applications currently provided may not operate normally in a specific model terminal or a specific software version.

In the case of downloading an application that does not operate normally as described above, inconveniences and complaints of subscribers may be raised, and thus, there is a problem that the quality of the overall mobile communication service may decrease.

In accordance with this problem, the user who attempts to download the application checks whether the corresponding application is supported on his terminal, and downloads and uses the application only when the application is supported. Alternatively, a method of downloading whether all applications are downloaded after testing whether or not only a portion of an application to be downloaded is supported and testing is supported.

However, these methods are cumbersome, such as having to check whether users can support each other or downloading a portion of an application in advance and retesting it. In addition, users who are not familiar with their terminal model have a problem that it is difficult to check whether they can support it, and regardless of whether the application is running normally, the user already incurs the cost at the time of the download process. There is a risk of additional procedures and costs.

As such, carriers providing applications and terminals to users operate a pre-check system before releasing terminals and applications due to these problems, but it entails a huge cost to pre-check all applications for all terminal models. Repeating this process every time a new terminal is released has a problem that is practically impossible.

In addition, the existing methods need to determine whether the application can be supported by the user or the mobile communication terminal, and the problem of avoidance of responsibility and customer inconvenience on the side of operating the mobile communication system may be raised.

Accordingly, the present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and provides a method and system for enabling a user to check whether the application is supported before downloading the corresponding application when the application is provided from the mobile communication system to the mobile communication terminal. Its purpose is to.

Further objects and advantages of the present invention can be understood by the following description, and will be more clearly understood by the embodiments of the present invention. Also, it will be readily appreciated that the objects and advantages of the present invention may be realized by the means and combinations thereof indicated in the claims.

In order to achieve the above object, the application providing method for notifying whether the terminal supports information according to the present invention is an application providing method for notifying whether the terminal supports the application when providing the application in the mobile communication terminal ( a) selecting an application to download from the mobile communication terminal and receiving a download request; (b) extracting terminal information of the mobile communication terminal; (c) checking whether the selected application supports the terminal based on the extracted terminal information; And (d) if it is not confirmed that the application supports the information, providing the corresponding information to the mobile communication terminal.

According to another aspect of the present invention, an application providing system for notifying whether a terminal supports the application when providing an application from the mobile communication system to the mobile communication terminal, the application is selected from the mobile communication terminal to download the selected application according to the download request Application providing means for processing; Support determination means for extracting terminal information of the mobile communication terminal and confirming whether the selected application supports the terminal based on the extracted terminal information; And support information providing means for providing the corresponding information to the mobile communication terminal, if it is not determined that the support means determines the application. do.

According to the present invention, by providing a mobile communication terminal to the mobile communication terminal by grasping the mobile communication terminal to download the application when the application is provided from the mobile communication system to the mobile communication terminal and whether the application can be supported or not before downloading the application. It provides the effect of preventing the downloading of applications that cannot guarantee support.

In addition, the mobile communication system informs in advance whether the application is supported, thereby improving the quality of service by reducing customer complaints later, and providing an effect of reducing the cost of handling customer complaints.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. Prior to this, terms or words used in the specification and claims should not be construed as having a conventional or dictionary meaning, and the inventors should properly explain the concept of terms in order to best explain their own invention. Based on the principle that can be defined, it should be interpreted as meaning and concept corresponding to the technical idea of the present invention. Therefore, the embodiments described in the specification and the drawings shown in the drawings are only the most preferred embodiment of the present invention and do not represent all of the technical idea of the present invention, various modifications that can be replaced at the time of the present application It should be understood that there may be equivalents and variations.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a network configuration of an application providing system that announces terminal support information according to an embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, the network configuration in which the system according to the present embodiment is implemented includes a mobile communication terminal 400, an application providing server 100 included in a mobile communication network, a subscriber information providing node 200, and an application providing. Companies 300 and 301 and the like.

The mobile communication terminal 400 is a terminal that supports a voice call or a video call while moving on a mobile communication network. The mobile communication terminal 400 connects to a mobile communication system (core network) through a wireless access network of a mobile communication network, and receives various services in a mobile communication system or a communication service with another mobile communication terminal.

In addition, the mobile communication terminal 400 has a function of downloading, storing, installing, executing and playing an application from the mobile communication system. The mobile communication terminal 400 includes a cellular phone, a smart phone, a PDA, and the like. In addition, the mobile communication terminal 400 may adopt various models and models capable of processing mobile communication services and applications. In addition, the mobile communication terminal 400 may have various types or various versions of internal software, system software, and firmware.

The subscriber information providing node 200 is included in a core network of a mobile communication system and stores, manages, and provides information of a mobile communication subscriber. The subscriber information providing node 200 may be a node linked to a home location register (HLR), a customer information management system, or a customer information management system. The subscriber information providing node 200 is linked to the application providing server 100 to be described later, and provides subscriber information (terminal information) as requested.

The application providing server 100 serves to provide an application to the mobile communication terminal 400 connected through the mobile communication network. The application providing server 100 may be a server device included in the core network of the mobile communication network or connected to the core network. The application providing server 100 stores, manages, and provides a self-made application or an application produced by a plurality of external application providers 300 and 301 according to a request of a mobile communication terminal connected thereto. The application providing server 100 includes a database 150 to store and manage an application to be provided to a mobile communication terminal.

Further, the application providing server 100 determines whether to support (normally installed or executed) an application to be provided to the terminal before providing the application selected and downloaded from the mobile communication terminal 400, and the determined information. It provides a function to provide to the mobile communication terminal 400.

Hereinafter, a more detailed description of the application providing server 100 according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of an application providing server that announces terminal support information according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 2, the application providing server 100 for notifying whether the terminal supports information according to the present invention includes an application providing module 110, a support determining module 120, a supporting information providing module 130, and Database 150 in which the application is stored.

The application providing module 110 serves to provide an application desired by the terminal user to the mobile communication terminal 400 connected through the mobile communication network. The application providing module 110 includes a selection processor 112 and a download processor 114.

The selection processing unit 112 performs a role of allowing the connected mobile communication terminal to select a desired application. That is, the selection processor 112 provides a list of applications stored and managed in the database 150 to the mobile communication terminal, and receives an application to be downloaded from the mobile communication terminal.

The download processor 114 transmits and provides the selected application to the mobile communication terminal. That is, the download processor 114 extracts the application selected by the selection processor 112 from the database 150 and transmits the extracted application to the mobile communication terminal. At this time, the download processing unit 114 does not start the download process until the download process instruction in the support information providing module 130 to be described later.

The support determination module 120 determines whether the application to be provided to the connected mobile communication terminal can be supported by the mobile communication terminal. The supportability means whether the application downloaded to the mobile communication terminal can be normally installed or executed in the terminal. The support determination module 120 includes a terminal information extracting unit 122, a supportable list extracting unit 124, a comparison determining unit 126, and the like.

The terminal information extractor 122 extracts terminal information of a mobile communication terminal to download an application. That is, the terminal information extracting unit 122 extracts terminal information of the corresponding terminal through subscriber information of the mobile communication terminal connected to the mobile communication network. The terminal information includes terminal model, model, software version, and International Mobile Station Equipment Identify (IMEI) information. The IMEI information of the terminal information is device specific information embedded in the terminal body, and the SNR part of the IMEI information represents a model of the terminal. In addition, the software version may include a system software version, firmware version or application processing software version information provided in the terminal.

In addition, the terminal information extracting unit 122 receives terminal information through subscriber information from the subscriber information providing node 200. That is, in conjunction with the subscriber information providing node 200, the subscriber information and the terminal information of the connected mobile communication terminal is requested and the corresponding information is provided. In another embodiment, the terminal information may be extracted through information included in a message or a protocol when the application providing server 100 of the mobile communication terminal is connected or when the application is requested.

As such, the method of receiving terminal information from the terminal information extracting unit 122 includes a method of directly extracting information from a terminal connected to a mobile communication network or an application providing server 100 and an existing subscriber database (subscriber information providing node). There is a method of extracting the necessary information (200). Furthermore, the above methods can be implemented simultaneously and have the advantage of not needing to interwork with the subscriber information providing node 200 when extracting information only from a terminal accessing the network, and additionally, if accurate information is not extracted. Information extracted from the subscriber information providing node 200 may be used. This is possible according to the implementation issue of the telecommunication company, and can easily select multiple implementations.

The supportable list extractor 124 extracts terminal supportable information of an application selected for download by the mobile communication terminal. That is, the supportable information about the application selected by the selection processor 112 is extracted from the database. The supportable information includes terminal information supporting the application (normal installation and execution). Or, the list of terminals supporting the application is included. Whether the terminal supports a specific application may be set through pre-inspection (test) when the specific application is produced.

The comparison determining unit 126 compares the terminal information of the mobile communication terminal with the supportable information of the application to be downloaded and determines whether the corresponding application is supported by the mobile communication terminal. That is, the terminal information extracted by the terminal information extracting unit 122 and the supportable information extracted by the supportable list extracting unit 124 are compared to determine whether the terminal information is included in the supportable information, and included. If it is not included, it is determined that it cannot be supported or that normal support is not guaranteed. Here, to more clearly define a case in which the terminal information is not included in the supportable information, it indicates a state in which the terminal cannot support or cannot support it. That is, it cannot be guaranteed whether or not support is possible.

Therefore, if the terminal information is not included in the supportable information, there is a concern that the application may not be installed and executed in the mobile communication terminal that downloaded the application. There is a problem.

The support information providing module 130 serves to provide information on whether the application to be downloaded to the mobile communication terminal can support. That is, as a result of the determination by the support determination module 120, the information is transmitted to the connected mobile communication terminal 400 and announced. The support information providing module 130 includes a guide information providing unit 132, a normal processing unit 134, and the like.

The guide information providing unit 132 serves to generate and provide information on whether the application supports the terminal to be transmitted to the mobile communication terminal as a guide message. That is, a guide message is generated according to the result information of the support determination module 120, and the mobile communication terminal user can confirm by transmitting a message before downloading the application. These guidance messages contain information that does not guarantee the normal installation and execution of the application. In addition, the guide message may be provided in the form of a pop-up message. In addition, by providing guide information and providing a message requesting confirmation of the download progress, the user may receive the download progress information from the user. The guide information providing unit 132 may provide a guide message only when it is determined that the application cannot be supported by the support determination module 120 (if support cannot be guaranteed).

The normal processor 134 instructs and controls the mobile communication terminal to download the application. That is, when it is determined that the support determination module 120 is an application that can be supported by the mobile communication terminal, the application providing module 110 instructs the application to be downloaded to the mobile communication terminal. In addition, when it is determined that the application is supported by the support determination module 120 (if the support is guaranteed), the normal processing unit 134 does not perform the processing of providing guide information by the guide information providing unit 132. It is desirable to instruct and control to immediately perform the download process.

In addition, when the guide information providing unit 132 receives a download progress request from the mobile communication terminal after providing the guide information, the guide information providing unit 132 performs control to perform the download process as described above. In other words, despite providing information (notification) of an application that does not guarantee support to the mobile communication terminal through the guide information providing unit 132, when receiving a download request signal from the user through the normal processing unit 134 Perform a normal download process. As such, since the guide information is provided to the user that the support cannot be guaranteed, it is possible to prevent a complaint report from the user who has been downloaded later due to the impossibility of running the application. In addition, the provision of this guide information can be used as evidence of refutation in case of dissatisfaction of the user later.

3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a database provided in an application providing system for reporting terminal support information according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 3, a database 150 according to the present invention includes an application DB 152 and support information DB 154. In addition, the terminal information DB (not shown) for storing and managing subscriber information or terminal information separately may be further provided. When the terminal information DB is provided, terminal information may be extracted and used without interworking of the subscriber information providing node 200.

The application DB 152 is a database of a plurality of application data to be provided to the mobile communication terminal is stored and managed. The plurality of application data includes an application provided from an external application provider 300 or 301 or a self-made application.

The support information DB 154 is a database in which support information for each application stored in the application DB 152 is stored. The support information DB 154 stores supportable terminal information corresponding to each application. That is, list information of terminals capable of supporting a specific application is stored. The list of terminals is stored in one or a combination of terminal model information, IMEI information, software version information, and the like. In addition, the support information DB 154 generates and stores the support information after checking whether the mobile communication system can support the application. Alternatively, the testable terminal information may be tested when the application is produced, and the terminal information may be provided as a list and stored.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of an application providing method of notifying terminal support availability information according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 4, first, a mobile communication terminal accesses an application providing server through a mobile communication system. In this case, access is made using a data communication service of the mobile communication system.

When the mobile communication terminal is connected to the application providing server, a procedure of extracting an application list and providing the same to the mobile communication terminal is performed. The mobile terminal checks the list provided and selects an application to download. In this way, after the application is selected from the terminal, the application providing server receives a download request signal of the selected application from the terminal (S20).

When the download request signal is received, a procedure of extracting terminal information of the connected mobile communication terminal is performed. The terminal information of the connected mobile communication terminal can be confirmed through the information or protocol at the time of connection, or the terminal information through the subscriber information in association with the subscriber information providing node (S30).

In addition, in the application providing server, a procedure of extracting supportable terminal list information on an application selected and requested for downloading by the mobile communication terminal is performed. The supportable terminal list information is extracted from the support information DB. In this list information, information on terminals supporting the application is recorded (S40).

As described above, when the extracted information of the connected terminal is extracted and the support list information for the application to be downloaded is extracted, the procedure of determining whether the corresponding application is supported by the corresponding terminal is performed by comparing the extracted two pieces of information. That is, it is determined whether the extracted terminal information is included in the support list information of the corresponding application. If the terminal information is included in the support available list, it is determined that the support is possible, and if it is not included, it is determined that it is not supported or that the support cannot be guaranteed (S50).

If it is determined that the above cannot be supported or cannot be guaranteed, a procedure of generating the fact as a support guide message and providing the fact to the mobile communication terminal is performed. That is, the application to download transmits a guide message indicating that support is not available or cannot be guaranteed in the corresponding mobile communication terminal. For example, a pop-up message may provide guidance information as described above. An example in which such a popup message is provided to the mobile communication terminal is illustrated in FIG. 5.

5 is a screen illustrating an example of an application support disable guide popup message provided to a mobile communication terminal. As shown in the figure, a pop-up guide message is displayed on the display device of the mobile communication terminal. The contents include that the application to be downloaded may not be able to be driven or installed on the terminal. In addition, a message asking whether to download the corresponding application may be included with the guidance that the support is not possible or the support is not guaranteed.

Here, after the support guide message is provided, if an application download acceptance signal is received from the user, a procedure (step S80 to be described later) of transmitting the corresponding application to the mobile communication terminal is performed.

The mobile communication terminal user who confirms the guide message recognizes the fact before the start of downloading of the corresponding application, and requests the cancellation of the download, and the download providing procedure is performed in the application providing server. Therefore, the application data download process is not performed to the mobile communication terminal. That is, the user may recognize information that cannot be supported in advance before downloading the application, thereby preventing unnecessary data download (S70).

On the other hand, if it is determined that the support is possible in step S50, the transmission process of the corresponding application data is performed without a separate guidance message providing procedure. That is, a procedure of downloading the application data requested by the mobile communication terminal from the database and downloading the application data to the requested mobile terminal through the mobile communication network is performed. Of course, in this case, the facts that can be supported may be provided as a separate guide message.

Although the present invention has been described above by means of limited embodiments and drawings, the present invention is not limited thereto and will be described below by the person skilled in the art to which the present invention pertains. Of course, various modifications and variations are possible within the scope of the claims.

The following drawings, which are attached to this specification, illustrate exemplary embodiments of the present invention, and together with the detailed description of the present invention serve to further understand the technical spirit of the present invention, the present invention includes matters described in such drawings. It should not be construed as limited to.

FIG. 1 is a diagram illustrating a network configuration of an application providing system that announces terminal support information according to an embodiment of the present invention.

2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of an application providing server that announces terminal support information according to an embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a database provided in an application providing system for reporting terminal support information according to an embodiment of the present invention.

4 is a flowchart illustrating a procedure of an application providing method of notifying terminal support availability information according to an embodiment of the present invention.

5 is a screen illustrating an example of an application support disable guide popup message provided to a mobile communication terminal.

<Explanation of symbols for the main parts of the drawings>

100: application server 150: database

200: subscriber information providing node 300,301: application provider

400: mobile communication terminal

Claims (14)

An application providing method of notifying whether a terminal is supported when providing an application from a mobile communication system to a mobile communication terminal, (a) selecting an application to download from the mobile communication terminal and receiving a download request; (b) extracting terminal information of the mobile communication terminal by querying subscriber information of the mobile communication terminal connected to the mobile communication system; (c) checking whether the selected application supports the terminal based on the extracted terminal information; And (d) if not determined to support the application, providing the corresponding information to the mobile communication terminal. The method of claim 1, Step (c) is, And comparing the extracted terminal information with a list of supported terminal information that has been pre-checked whether or not the selected application can be normally installed or executed in advance. The method of claim 2, In step (c), whether the terminal supports or not, If the extracted terminal information is included in the supportable terminal information list, it is determined that the support is possible, and if not included, it is determined that normal installation or execution in the terminal is provided. Way. The method of claim 3, wherein Step (d) is, If not determined to support the application, the application providing method for notifying the terminal support information, characterized in that it provides the guide information that does not guarantee the normal installation or execution of the application to the mobile communication terminal. The method of claim 2, The list of supported terminal information, Application providing method for notifying the terminal support information, characterized in that for extracting from the support information DB stored in a database of the supportable terminal information pre-checked for each application to be provided to the mobile communication terminal. The method according to claim 1 or 2, After step (c), (e) if it is determined to support the application, transmitting the application to the mobile communication terminal; application providing method of notifying whether the terminal supports information, further comprising. delete The method of claim 1, The terminal information may include any one of terminal model information, terminal International Mobile Station Equipment Identify (IMEI) information, and terminal software version information. The method according to claim 1 or 2, Step (d) is, Application providing method for notifying the terminal support information, characterized in that made before downloading the application to the mobile communication terminal. An application providing system for notifying whether a terminal supports or not when providing an application from a mobile communication system to a mobile communication terminal, Application providing means for selecting an application to download from the mobile communication terminal and downloading the selected application according to the download request; Support information determining means for querying subscriber information of the mobile communication terminal connected to a mobile communication system to extract terminal information of the mobile communication terminal, and confirming whether the selected application supports the terminal based on the extracted terminal information; And And if it is determined by the support determination unit that it is not determined that the application supports the application, support information providing means for providing the corresponding information to the mobile communication terminal. The method of claim 10, The support determination means, The application providing system for notifying whether the terminal supports information, characterized in that the terminal information and the list of supported terminal information of the selected application is compared to determine whether to support. The method of claim 11, And supporting information DB, which is stored in a database of supportable terminal information pre-checked for each application to be provided to the mobile communication terminal as a list of supported terminal information and stored therein. The method of claim 10 or 11, The support information providing means, If it is determined by the support determination means that the application supports the application, the application providing system for notifying the terminal support information, characterized in that for downloading the selected application to the mobile communication terminal via the application providing means. . The method of claim 10 or 11, The application providing means, The application providing system for notifying the terminal support information, characterized in that the download process does not start until the support information providing means to download the selected application.

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