1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of mobile devices and, more particularly, to customizing strings displayed upon a mobile device over the air without altering core software of the device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile telephony devices are feature rich devices that typically include a display area capable of presenting text to users. A number of textual presentations can appear within the display area. Many of these textual presentations can indicate an occurrence of an event within an operating system of the mobile device. Most mobile telephone devices define the strings for the presented text within the core software of the mobile device.
Carriers providing communication services for mobile telephone devices often require mobile devices to display carrier-specific messages for branding purposes. For example, one carrier may prefer a contact list to be labeled “contacts,” another “phone book,” yet another “dudes,” and still another “directory.” Presently, there is no method to customize or brand these strings without changing the strings within the core software. Even a single carrier may want to target different markets and use one specific message for one market segment (youth) and a different specific message to another market segment (business).
Notably, the core software within mobile devices is typically secured against external modifications to prevent tampering. Accordingly, manufactures must often brand and configure otherwise similar mobile devices for different carriers before shipping the devices. Further, retailers stock and sell many similar mobile devices, each configured for a designated carrier. Currently, there fails to exist a method or system of configuring mobile devices with carrier-specific strings after being distributed to customers and/or at the time of distribution to customers without altering the core software of the mobile device.