Google Inc.

Joanne McKinley

Derek Jason Phillips

Jimmy S Shih

Zhanna Shamis

Cédric Beust

Alex Nicolaou

Cedric Beust

Brett Rolston Lider

Robert John Kroeger

Alexander Nicolaou

Casey Ho

Istiaque Ahmed

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

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for invoking execution of web based applications. In one aspect, a method includes receiving user input at a computing device, displaying a contact hovercard on a display of the computing device in response to the user input, the contact hovercard including first contact data and second contact data, the first contact data corresponding to a first web application and the second contact data corresponding to a second web application, the first web application and the second web application being executed on one or more servers, receiving user input selecting the first contact data, generating a user interface and accessing the first web application over a network in response to receiving the user input selecting the first contact data, and providing the first contact data as input to the first web application.

Hovercard pivoting for mobile devices

Methods, systems, and apparatus, including computer programs encoded on a computer storage medium, for receiving a first hyperlink as input, the first hyperlink comprising a resource indicator and link text, processing the resource indicator using a computing device to determine substitute link text, generating a second hyperlink, the second hyperlink comprising the resource indicator and the substitute link text, and providing the second hyperlink to be displayed on a display.

System and method for renaming hyperlinks

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

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.

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.

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Waterloo, Canada

Joanne McKinley