Patent ID: 8707178

Claim:
A method for facilitating alerting of a reception of a received data message at a mobile station, the method comprising: displaying, on a display of the mobile station, application icons including a message data application icon; in response to detecting reception of a newly-received data message subsequent to a selected detection period start, displaying, on the display of the mobile station, an animated icon to provide a visual alert of the reception of the newly received data message, the animated icon being displayed on the display such that the animated icon partially overlays the message data application icon, displaying the animated icon comprising: displaying an indicia at a first size for a first predetermined time period; displaying the indicia at a second size for a second predetermined time period after the first predetermined time period expires, the second size being smaller than the first size; and repeating displaying the indicia at the first size for the first predetermined time period and the displaying the indicia at the second size for the second predetermined time period until a timeout time period expires, to generate a pulsed appearance of the indicia.