APPLICATION INSTALL AND LAYOUT SYNCING

摘要

Embodiments described herein relate to synchronizing configuration information between devices associated with a user. The synchronized configuration information can relate to application installations and uninstallations as well as to user modifications to user interfaces for managing and invoking the applications. For example, layouts of application representations provided by respective application launchers on a user's respective devices are kept automatically synchronized when the user modifies any of the layouts. Installations and uninstallations are similarly synchronized between the user's devices. Installations and uninstallations that might stem from synchronization may be circumscribed in various ways, such as by allowing the user to specify whether specific applications are to be installed/uninstalled only on specific devices or globally, by filtering propagation of synchronization updates according to hardware or software features and incompatibilities, or others.

主权项

1. A method performed by a network service, the network service comprising an application repository service, the method comprising:
maintaining a set of user accounts by a user account service accessible via a network by devices associated with the user accounts, wherein the user accounts are authorized to install applications from the application store service, wherein the user account service maintains device lists for the user accounts, respectively, wherein each device list lists whichever devices are linked to a corresponding user account, and wherein the maintaining comprises adding and removing devices to the device lists; providing an application store service comprising a database storing application install packages, application identifiers, and associations between the application install packages and the application identifiers, wherein some of the application identifiers each have associations with multiple application install packages that are configured for different and incompatible operating systems, the database further storing, for each user account, each application install list listing, for a respective user account, application identifiers of respective applications that have been installed in association with the respective user account; and providing a synchronization service that synchronizes application installations according to the device lists and the install lists such that when a device list lists two devices with different and incompatible operating systems, an application identifier in the corresponding install list is applied to the associations to select application installation packages specific to the operating systems of the two devices, respectively, for installation thereto.