Patent ID: 8600579

Claim:
A vehicular communication system including (i) an in-vehicle apparatus in a vehicle and (ii) a portable apparatus held by an occupant of the vehicle, the in-vehicle apparatus containing a database storage device to store an application program and an activation section to activate the application program in the database storage device of the in-vehicle apparatus, the portable apparatus containing a database storage device to store an application program and an activation section to activate the application program in the database storage device of the portable apparatus, the in-vehicle apparatus and the portable apparatus intercommunicating with each other when a short range wireless communication link is connected, the vehicular communication system comprising: a change determination section to determine whether a change operation is made based on a manipulation by the occupant to cause a change to an application program in the database storage device of one of the in-vehicle apparatus and the portable apparatus; and a synchronization section to perform an application program synchronization operation in cases that the change determination section determines that the change operation is made in the one of the in-vehicle apparatus and the portable apparatus under a state that the short range communication link is connected between the in-vehicle apparatus and the portable apparatus, the application program synchronization operation ensuring that the application program stored in the database storage device of the in-vehicle apparatus and the application program stored in the database storage device of the portable apparatus become identical to each other; wherein the application program to which the application program synchronization operation is applied is an application program for cooperative processing, the application program for cooperative processing enables cooperative processing in the in-vehicle apparatus and the portable apparatus when (i) each of the in-vehicle apparatus and the portable apparatus stores the application program for cooperative processing and (ii) the activation section of each of the in-vehicle apparatus and the portable apparatus activates concurrently the application program for cooperative processing.