Methods, apparatus and system for mobile piggybacking

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9706332-B2
Application number	US-201615255629-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 2, 2016
Priority date	Nov 8, 2012
Publication date	Jul 11, 2017
Grant date	Jul 11, 2017

Abstract

Methods, systems, and apparatus for providing assistance to a user of a mobile application are described. A request is issued to a remote from a mobile device for assistance. Information indicative of a sequence of states of an execution of a mobile application is periodically transmitted from a mobile device to the remote device.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus comprising:
at least one processor and
memory to store instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising:
issuing a request from a mobile device to a remote device for assistance; and
periodically transmitting information from the mobile device to the remote device, the information indicative of a sequence of states of an execution of a mobile application.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the information describes content of a display of the mobile device.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the information includes a memory dump of the mobile device.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the information comprises captured screen shots from a display of the mobile device.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the information comprises changes to content displayed on a display of the mobile device.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , the operations further comprising establishing a voice connection between the remote device and the mobile device.

7. An apparatus comprising:
at least one processor and memory to store instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising:
receiving a request for assistance from a client help application on a mobile device;
periodically receiving information from the mobile device, the information indicative of a sequence of states of an execution of a mobile application; and
emulating the mobile application of the mobile device based on the information, the emulating including mimicking the sequence of states of the execution of the mobile application.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 , the operations further comprising:
receiving input which specifies one or more commands to be executed on the mobile device; and
sending the one or more commands to the client help application for execution on the mobile device.

9. The apparatus of claim 8 , the operations further comprising processing the information from the mobile device to derive the input.

10. The apparatus of claim 8 , wherein the input is derived by an emulator simulating activity on the mobile device based on the information from the mobile device.

11. A method comprising:
issuing a request from a mobile device to a remote device for assistance; and
periodically transmitting information from the mobile device to the remote device, the information indicative of a sequence of states of an execution of a mobile application.

12. The method of claim 11 , wherein the information describes content of a display of the mobile device.

13. The method of claim 11 , wherein the information includes a list of processes executing on the mobile device.

14. The method of claim 11 , wherein the information comprises captured screen shots from a display of the mobile device.

15. The method of claim 11 , wherein the information comprises changes to content displayed on a display of the mobile device.

16. The method of claim 11 , wherein the issuance of the request is performed automatically in response to detecting an error of the mobile application.

17. A method comprising:
receiving a request for assistance from a client help application on a mobile device;
periodically receiving information from the mobile device, the information indicative of a sequence of states of an execution of a mobile application; and
emulating the mobile application of the mobile device based on the information, the emulating including mimicking a sequence of states of the execution of the mobile application.

18. The method of claim 17 , further comprising automatically determining a course of action for providing the assistance based on the emulation.

19. The method of claim 17 , further comprising:
receiving input which specifies one or more commands to be executed on the mobile device; and
sending the one or more commands to the client help application for execution on the mobile device, wherein the input is derived by an emulator simulating activity on the mobile device based on the information from the mobile device.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable medium embodying instructions that, when executed by a processor, perform operations comprising:
issuing a request from a mobile device to a remote device for assistance; and
periodically transmitting information from the mobile device to the remote device, the information indicative of a sequence of states of an execution of a mobile application.

Assignees

• Ebay Inc

Inventors

• Hamilton Scot Fraser
• Van Tol Ladd
• Shardlow Luke
• Chard Jonathan David
• Olson Matthew

Classifications

• G09G2370/022

  Centralised management of display operation, e.g. in a server instead of locally · CPC title

• H04W4/50 Primary

  Service provisioning or reconfiguring · CPC title

• H04L67/025

  for remote control or remote monitoring of applications · CPC title

• G09G2370/027

  Arrangements and methods specific for the display of internet documents · CPC title

• G06F3/1454

  involving copying of the display data of a local workstation or window to a remote workstation or window so that an actual copy of the data is displayed simultaneously on two or more displays, e.g. teledisplay · CPC title