Google Inc.

Derek Jason Phillips

Joanne McKinley

Jimmy S Shih

Zhanna Shamis

Robert John Kroeger

Alex Nicolaou

Cédric Beust

Andrew Alexander Grieve

Matthew James Bolohan

Cedric Beust

Neil Thomas

Bryan Russell Yeung

Shyam Sheth

Jen Chen-Chuan Hsieh

Peter G Baldwin

Steven Gregory Woods

Methods for responding to an email message by a phone call from a mobile device are described. In some embodiments, mobile devices are capable of receiving emails. The emails may be in form of messages in a threaded conversation. Each message has metadata and the metadata includes a phone number corresponding to a sender of the message. The text or information associated with the message is displayed but not the metadata. While a user is reading the message displayed on the mobile device, the user is provided with a plurality of options to respond to the message, an option is for the user to call the sender of the message using the phone number in the metadata. Upon selecting such an option, the user is able to initiate a call to the sender of the message by activating a feature to call using the phone number stored in the metadata without physically looking up and dialing the sender's number. Other embodiments are also described.

Methods for responding to an email message by call from a mobile device

Methods for implementing an auto-complete feature for contact entry on mobile devices are described. In some embodiments, a mobile device downloads from a server a number of contacts associated with a user, wherein the number of contacts is a subset of contacts in a contact list of the user. Upon receiving a partial contact entry from the user that includes a string of one or more characters, the mobile device identifies contacts from the downloaded contacts matching the partial entry. The mobile device displays no more than a preset number of matching contacts on the display of the mobile device at any one time, in a particular order, with an option for the user to display and fetch for more matching contacts. Other embodiments are also described.

Methods for auto-completing contact entry on mobile devices

Systems, methods, and computer readable storage mediums for providing message services from a server are described. In some embodiments, a server stores an attachment associated with a communication. The server sends the communication to a client device, with a representation of the attachment type that includes an indication of the attachment's native file type. The server receives a request from the client device to view the attachment in the client device. The server retrieves the attachment in response to the request and transcodes the attachment from the attachment's native file type to a viewable file type configured to display in the client device. The viewable file type is determined by the server based on metadata received from the client device. The server transmits at least a portion of the attachment in the viewable file type to the client device for display. Other embodiments are also described.

Systems and methods for supporting downloadable applications on a portable client device

Systems and methods for prefetching relevant information for responsive mobile email applications are describe. In some embodiments, the server performs operations for prefetching data for an application operating on a client device. The server receives from a client device a request for a list of conversations. In response to the request, the server fetches conversation headers associated with the request list of conversations and fetches up to a predetermined number of messages, within conversations in the list of conversations, which are determined to be most relevant to a user of the client device in accordance with predefined criteria, and then transmits the fetched headers and the fetched messages to the client device. Other embodiments are also described.

Systems and methods for prefetching relevant information for responsive mobile email applications

Systems and methods for implementing a card-based user interface for thread-based communications on mobile devices are described. In some embodiments, in response to activation of an application, a mobile device receives data that represents a set of threaded conversations, where the data includes a representation header for each threaded conversation in the set of threaded conversations. The mobile device then displays a list of the representation headers for the set of threaded conversations. In response to an activation of the representation header corresponding to a particular threaded conversation in the set of the threaded conversations, the mobile device displays in a first expanded card, text associated with a most recent message in the particular threaded conversation, and in a collapsed card, a representation of previously read messages in the particular threaded conversation. Other embodiments are also described.

Systems and methods for a card-based user interface for reading thread-based communications on mobile devices

A system and a computer-implemented methods for email management are disclosed. The method includes storing messages for electronic mail accounts provided by remote electronic mail server systems. The method further includes determining that the remote electronic mail server systems each have a different hostname than the others of the remote electronic mail server systems. The method further includes displaying messages from a first one of the electronic mail accounts and displaying a hostname of a first remote electronic mail server system providing the first one of the electronic mail accounts. The method further includes receiving a request to view messages from a second one of the electronic mail accounts. The method further includes displaying messages from the second one of the electronic mail accounts and displaying a hostname of a second remote electronic mail server system providing the second one of the electronic mail accounts.

Multi-account messaging management

The methods track abnormal events on mobile client devices, such as web application crashes, and use that information to associate the abnormal events with device characteristics. A first method executes on mobile client devices. When a web application starts, the method looks for a crash indicator cookie in persistent memory. If the cookie does not exist, the method creates and stores it. If the cookie already exists, the method collects information about the client device, such as device type, browser type, and operating system, and sends the information to a web server. The web application deletes the cookie when the application terminates normally. A second method executes on a web server. This method receives information from client devices relating to abnormal events for web applications. The information includes device characteristics of each client device. This method stores the information and associates a pattern of abnormal events with device characteristics.

Tracking remote browser crashes via cookies

Methods for transcoding attachments for mobile devices are described. In some embodiments, attachments associated with any communication are stored on a server. When a communication is sent from a server to a client device, a representation of the attachment that includes an indication of a native file type of the attachment is also sent along with the communication to the client device. In responding to a user's request to view the attachment, the server transcodes the attachment from the attachment's native file type to a viewable file type configured to display in the client device and then transmits at least a portion of the attachment in the viewable file type to the client device for display. Other embodiments are also described.

Methods for transcoding attachments for mobile devices

A server system receives a first request for a data item from a web application on a client device, wherein the first request includes an identifier of the data item. In response to the first request, the server system calculates a first checksum of the data item and sends the data item and the first checksum to the web application, for storage in the local database. The server system receives a second request for the data item from the web application, calculates a second checksum of the data item and compares the first and second checksums. The server system, determines that the data item has been updated by comparing the first checksum to the second checksum; and in response to determining that the data item has been updated, the server system a reply to the web application a indicating that the data item has been updated.

Reduced bandwidth cache coherency via checksum exchange

Systems and methods for downloading customized applications from a server are described. In some embodiments, a server receives a request from a client device to download an application. The server identifies a type of the client device and a user characteristic. In response to the request, the server obtains a customized environment file associated with the user characteristic for the application, where the customized environment file defines an interface appearance of the application. The server sends to the client device, the customized environment file and the application appropriate for the type of the client device, such that the customized environment file gives the application running on the client device an appearance associated with the user characteristics. Other embodiments are also described.

Techniques are described herein that provide a web application that incorporates one or more shared worker applications. In one example, a shared worker application as described herein may receive a first request for first information for a first web application, acquire the first information in response to the request, and store at least a portion of the first information in a memory of a local communications device. The shared worker may further receive a second request for second information for a second web application. The shared worker may determine whether at least a portion of the first information stored in the memory of the local communications device will satisfy the second request for the second information. The shared worker may provide, from the local memory to the second web application, at least the portion of the first information in response to the second request.

Shared worker application

Methods for simulating icon popout on memory constrained devices are described. In some embodiments, the client device displays a message status icon where the message status icon represents a first message status of the respective message. In response to a user action, the status of the respective action changes and the visual appearance of the message status icon varies such that the displayed message status icon represents a second message status of the respective message, to identify a status change of the respective message. The message status icon comprises a fixed image having a display background with at least one property that can be varied to achieve the changes in the visual appearance of the message status icon. Other embodiments are also described.

Methods for simulating icon popout on memory constrained devices

In one example, a device includes a first interface to receive a request for a service provider recommendation, the request comprising a first geographic position value and a second, different geographic position value, wherein the service provider recommendation comprises a recommendation for a provider of a wireless service for a mobile device, means for determining aggregate signal quality values for service providers at a first location including the first geographic position and at a second location including the second geographic position, means for determining scores for the service providers based on signal quality values for the service providers at the first location and the second location, means for constructing the service provider recommendation comprising an identification of the service provider having the highest score, and a second interface to output the service provider recommendation.

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Waterloo, Canada

Derek Jason Phillips