On January 7, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple’s patent application titled User Interface Spaces . In short, this patent is all about Apple’s OS X feature called Spaces, which debuted with Leopard in 2007. The emphasis of this report will narrowly focus on Apple’s Space Management Component and a feature that Apple engineers let slip: A feature that indeed could retrofit Spaces for use with Front Row and Apple TV. This would be the second patent revealed on February seventh relating to Apple TV’s future feature set.

Space Management Component & its Seven Engines

Apple’s patent FIG. 2 shown below, is a block diagram of an example of an architecture for generation and use of spaces in a display environment. The space management component (118) is here shown as interfacing with an application server (202), an operating system (204) and an Expose & component (206).

The space management component 118 can have engines for handling tasks such as space management, preferences, presentation, identification animation and editing, as well as application deactivation. A space management engine 208 can manage the other engines in the component 118 or components thereof. A space presentation engine 210 can handle how spaces are presented on a computer display. A space identification engine 212 can handle identification of the application program(s) associated with each space. A space edit engine 214 can handle tasks which involve reordering, adding, or removing spaces within a space group or moving application windows within or among workgroups. A space animation engine 216 can be used, for example, to handle fade in/out transitions or movement of spaces and application windows. A space preferences engine 218 can handle information about user preferences for matters such as the assignment of programs to spaces, space editing, transition details, etc. An application deactivation engine 225 can handle deactivating applications; for example, the engine 225 can be used for turning off streaming video when the corresponding space is not active on the user interface.

In the example shown in FIG. 2, the operating system 204 provides resources to the space management component 118 such as task execution, memory, application window IDs, etc. The component 118 uses these resources, as applicable, in generating and using spaces. The application server 202 can communicate with the space management component 118 and the Expose component. The application server can serve one or more applications for presentation in windows on the display device. Certain operations can be performed on these windows using the space management component 118 or the Expose component 206.

The Expose component 206 is a well-known feature available from Apple Computer in Cupertino, Calif. For example, the Expose component 206 provides that a user can trigger tiling, scaling or arrangement of open windows to increase usability. For these or other purposes, the Expose component 206 can communicate with the space management component 118 and the application server 206 to coordinate application window presentation.

OS X Spaces: Picture-in-Picture (PIP) Feature

While it’s interesting to see the complexity behind Apple’s Spaces Management Component that controls one of Apple’s latest OS features, it’s the following twist to this patent where it really gets interesting for most consumers interested in Apple TV.

Apple’s patent FIG. 17 depicts an example screenshot of display 1700 showing a space 1702. Here, the contents of the space 1702 include a window 1704. There is also presented an inset window 1706 showing the contents of anther space 1708. That is, the contents of the first space 1702 are displayed spread out over the display at normal size and the contents of the second space 1708 are scaled to fit in the inset window. A user can interact with and use the contents of either space.

In some implementations, a display can show a space, such as 1702, at full size and display a second space, such as 1708, in an inset window 1706, whose contents are scaled to fit the window. In some implementations, the inset window 1706 can always be displayed “over” the contents of the first space 1702 such that the region of the display containing the inset window 1706 displays the inset window 1706 and the contents of the second space 1708 wherever overlap occurs with content in the first space 1702. The spaces 1702 and 1706 can be presented using the space presentation engine 210.

While it’s interesting to note that Apple’s patent described the functionality of windows 1706 & 1708 in a convoluted manner, the fact remains that the patent verbiage never reveals why Apple’s engineers decided to call this window combination a Picture-in-Picture or PIP feature, even though it’s clearly presented as such in FIG. 17. At present, Apple’s OS X Spaces feature has only been understood in terms of being an organizational tool for the desktop. However, it appears that at least one of Apple’s engineers thinks that this feature clearly has an entertainment angle to it that could be utilized by such applications as Apple TV and/or Front Row, for instance.

The traditional TV PIP feature is quite straight forward and simple: keep another TV channel active in a smaller secondary window so that the user could keep track of and switch to an event if it so warranted – be it to catch that touchdown replay or catch a live event on CNN and so forth. With Apple’s Spaces feature applied to Apple TV, for example, we could eventually see this one-time humble PIP feature advancing leaps and bounds. Beyond the one-window TV-Channel PIP option, a consumer would be able to construct their PIP window to open in a myriad of ways to facilitate a wide array of application combinations. A consumer could conceivably construct their PIP window to contain an iPhoto album, their iTunes library, Apple’s Safari browser for web surfing, a window for email or perhaps a future Spotlight driven TV guide application. I’m sure that you could think of a dozen other combinations to suit your specific needs, as well.

Does that scenario sound a little farfetched to you? Well it shouldn’t, really. In my report covering the core of Intel’s 2007 Beijing keynote, titled Apple, Intel and the Ultimate Mobile Device, I presented a series of screenshots taken from Intel’s promotional video titled I have seen the future, step into tomorrow. In one quad-series of screenshots shown above, you’ll easily notice that the bottom right corner-shot clearly presents a combined image consisting of an HDTV and an iPhone/iPod touch type of device in sync with each other. Intel’s image is in fact displaying a Spaces-like application. Clearly Apple’s Spaces feature is destined for applications beyond productivity – and Intel’s presentational video helps us to visualize the future of Spaces on HDTV – with ease.
Apple lists Assana Fard (Sunnyvale, CA), John O. Louch (San Luis Obispo, CA), Ralf Brunner (Cupertino, CA), Haroon Sheikh (Campbell, CA), Eric Peyton (Lisle, IL) and Christopher Hynes (Santa Cruz, CA) as the inventors of this patent which was originally filed in August 2006.

NOTICE: MacNN presents only a brief summary of patents with associated graphic(s) for journalistic news purposes as each such patent application and/or grant is revealed by the U.S. Patent & Trade Office. Readers are cautioned that the full text of any patent applications and/or grants should be read in its entirety for further details.

Written and researched by Neo.