Customizing Mobile Applications
Bill N. Schilit Currently visiting Xerox Palo Alto
Research Center, 3333 Coyote Hill Rd., Palo Alto, CA 94304
Computer Science Department, Columbia University
Marvin M. Theimer and Brent B. Welch
Palo Alto Research Center, Xerox Corporation
Abstract
The dynamics of mobile systems require applications to intelligently
adapt to changes in system configurations and to their environment.
We describe a workplace in which users interact with a number of
stationary and mobile systems through the course of a day. The
relationship between systems and devices is constantly changing due to
user mobility. We present a facility for mobile application
customization called ``dynamic environment variables.'' The facility
allows flexible sharing of customization contexts, supports short
interactions with long term services, and provides efficient
notification of environment changes to applications. A sample
application built in PARC's mobile computing environment and initial
performance evaluations are described.
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