How do I get this app? A discourse on distributing mobile applications despite disrupted infrastructure
Abstract
This paper aims to lead a discourse on distributing mobile applications while having no access to cloud services. While in daily life people acquire applications via application stores, the access to those stores can be severely hampered in disasters. Instead of wishful thinking, i.e. hoping that people or manufactures would pre-install an (emergency) app before a disaster, we have started to investigate into Internet-less deployment mechanisms. We discuss five potential approaches of deploying apps in an ad-hoc fashion. Each approach is assessed against six criteria, while taking a stance that the smartphone is the minimally required deployment platform. This paper concludes with the observation that current mobile operating system providers do not provide "Internet-less" deployment mechanisms, although platforms as Android allow for this. This said, we hope that this contribution can spark further interest into the discussed problematic.
