Embodiments of a computer system, a method, and a computer-program product (e.g., software) for use with the computer system are described. These embodiments may be used to generate an application description of one or more data-described applications that provides one or more functions in a virtual environment on a portable electronic communication device, such as a cellular telephone. This application description may be based at least in part on a schema that defines one or more fields, one or more formats and/or one or more sequences of data. Using the application description, a given data-described application may interpret data in the virtual environment. Moreover, by compiling the schema with the appropriate data to describe an application, the application running on a virtual environment can support multiple models and configurations of the portable electronic communication device.