Apple Files 4 Continuation Patents Including a Unique Cell Phone Application

On February 15, the US Patent & Trademark Office published four of Apple’s continuation patent applications respectfully titled Method for providing stand-in objects, Auto stacking of time related images, Management of files in a personal communication device and Method and apparatus for implementing a sleep proxy for services on a network. In Apple’s management of files in a personal communications device patent, they discuss a cell phone application which is noteworthy.

Method for providing stand-in objects

Apple’s Abstract: A method for providing stand-in objects, where relationships among objects are automatically resolved in an object oriented relational database model without the necessity of retrieving data from the database until it is needed. A “fault” class is defined, as well as fault objects whose data haven t yet been fetched from the database. An object that’s created for the destination of a relationship whenever an object that includes the relationship is fetched from the database. When an object is fetched that has relationships, fault objects are created to “stand-in” for the destination objects of those relationships. Fault objects transform themselves into the actual enterprise objects–and fetch their data–the first time they’re accessed. Subsequently, messages sent to the target objects are responded to by the objects themselves.

In Apple’s patent FIG. 1A, an Employee object 101, labeled Jane Brown, is fetched from the database 105. Every employee has a manager, and Jane’s is Kay Johnson. Instead of fetching Kay’s data right away, a fault object 102 is created that contains the value of the foreign key 103 for Jane’s to Manager relationship (in this case the value is Kay’s employee ID). The graphic for the fault object 102 has an empty center 104 with a key 103 in it, indicating that it contains no real values yet. The bottom half 106 of the object 102 shows the messages that the fault object can respond to without having to fetch its data, such as class, retain, and release.
Auto stacking of time related images

Apple’s Abstract: Digital images may be grouped based on attributes of the images. To represent this grouping, the representations of the digital images are arranged into stacks.
A user, such as a photographer, may manage and organize a collection of digital images using a digital image system that displays digital images using stacks according to one embodiment of the invention. FIG. 1 is an illustration of a display 100 and storage 100 of several digital images by a digital image system, according to one embodiment of the invention.

Management of files in a personal communication device

Apple’s Abstract: Improved approaches for assisting a user interacting with a portable wireless communication device are disclosed. The improved approaches can provide a user interface for the portable wireless communication device that includes including a plurality of linked display screens and a plurality of physical keys.

Apple’s patent FIG. 6 is a cell phone as an exemplary wireless communication device in accordance with the invention.

The cell phone includes a display suitable for displaying any of a number of icons (not shown) useful for providing information to a user, a number of input keys (which in this case represent telephonic input characters useful for telephone dialing, text messaging, etc.) and a navigation tool (point 606) that provides a user the ability to navigate amongst the displayed icons. When used as a cell phone, any number of useful personal data files can be loaded into a memory device (not shown) incorporated into the cell phone 600 for later retrieval and access by a user. It should be noted, however, that other embodiments, the wireless communication device can be used as a multimedia player in much the same manner described above. However, in particularly useful embodiments, the wireless communication device can provide the functionality of the cell phone as well as provide for the storage and playback of multimedia asset files, such as AAC or MP3 files. In this case, the cell phone/multimedia player wirelessly synchronizes with a remote server. In some cases, the cell phone/multimedia player will periodically wirelessly synchronize to a host computer (e.g., personal computer) as shown in FIGS. 7 and 8 that show a flow diagram of synchronization processing according to one embodiment of the invention. The synchronization processing is, for example, performed by a host computer that connects to the wireless communication device over a wired or wireless data link. The media device synchronization processing is performed by a media device that interacts with a host computer over a network.

Method and apparatus for implementing a sleep proxy for services on a network

Apple’s Abstract: One embodiment of the present invention provides a system for implementing a sleep proxy. The system starts by receiving a request at the sleep proxy for information pertaining to a service provided by a device. In response to this request, the system determines if the device is a member of a list of devices for which the sleep proxy takes action. If so, the system determines if the sleep proxy can answer the request. If so, the sleep proxy sends a response to the request on behalf of the device. In a variation on this embodiment, if the system cannot answer the request on behalf of the device, the system sends a wakeup packet to the device, wherein the wakeup packet causes the device to exit a power-saving mode so that the device can respond to the request directly.

For more information on any of these patents, please read the patents in their entirety. Method for providing stand-in objects (patent no. 20070039008); Auto stacking of time-related images (patent no. 20070035551); Management of files in a personal communication device (patent no. 20070038941); Method and apparatus for implementing a sleep proxy for services on a network (patent no. 20070038877).

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Written and researched by Neo.