Patents Assigned to Apple
  • Fall detection—audio looping
    Patent number: 11605274
    Abstract: Techniques are provided for contacting emergency response services when certain conditions are met. In some instances, it may be determined, by a wearable device, whether a user has responded to a first user interface prompt displayed in response to detection of a physical event associated with the user. In accordance with a determination that the user has not responded to the first user interface prompt after expiration of a first time period, certain actions may be performed. For example, a countdown timer may begin to run for a second timer period. During the second period, an audio alert and a haptic alert may be output by the wearable device. In accordance with a determination that the user has not responded to a second user interface prompt prior to expiration of the second time period, a communication channel request may be transmitted to an emergency response service by the wearable device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 22, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Albert Riley Howard, Catherine B. B. Morrison, Christopher P. Saari, Heather E. Daniel, Kevin M. Lynch, Ronald Keryuan Huang, Sherif Mohamed, Telford E. Forgety, III, Matthew W. Crowley, Eamon F. Gilravi
  • Folded lens system with five refractive lenses
    Patent number: 11604337
    Abstract: Compact folded lens systems are described that may be used in small form factor cameras. Lens systems are described that may include five lens elements with refractive power, with a light folding element such as a prism, located between a first lens element on the object side of the lens system and a second lens element, that redirects the light refracted from the first lens element from a first axis onto a second axis on which the other lens elements and a photosensor are arranged. The lens systems may include an aperture stop located behind the front vertex of the lens system, for example at the first lens element, and an optional infrared filter, for example located between the last lens element and a photosensor.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: December 3, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Yuhong Yao, Yoshikazu Shinohara
  • Automated media editing operations in consumer devices
    Patent number: 11605224
    Abstract: Techniques disclosed for managing video captured by an imaging device. Methods disclosed capture a video in response to a capture command received at the imaging device. Following a video capture, techniques for classifying the captured video based on feature(s) extracted therefrom, for marking the captured video based on the classification, and for generating a media item from the captured video according to the marking are disclosed. Accordingly, the captured video may be classified as representing a static event, and, as a result, a media item of a still image may be generated. Otherwise, the captured video may be classified as representing a dynamic event, and, as a result, a media item of a video may be generated.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 26, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: Bartlomiej Rymkowski, Robert Bailey, Ethan Tira-Thompson, Shuang Gao, Ben Englert, Emilie Kim, Shujie Liu, Ke Zhang, Vinay Sharma, Xiaosong Zhou
  • Self-adapting electronic device
    Patent number: 11605273
    Abstract: Methods and apparatuses are disclosed that allow an electronic device to autonomously adapt one or more user alerts of the electronic device. For example, some embodiments may include a method for operating a haptic device including driving a haptic device using a control signal, measuring a frequency related to the operation of the haptic device and comparing the measured frequency with a target frequency. A control signal is adjusted based on the comparison to drive the haptic device to the target frequency.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 17, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventor: Matthew Hill
  • Behavioral curation of media assets
    Patent number: 11604818
    Abstract: In some implementations, a computing device may create a semantic mapping that includes identified features that appear in a particular percentage of assets in a subset of assets of a media library. Also, the computing device may analyze assets of the media library using the semantic mapping to generate semantic scores, which may be used to determine a first tier of assets from the media library that rate highest for semantic score out of all assets. The computing device may present at least one of the first tier assets prominently in a user interface when viewing assets of the media library.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 4, 2019
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Sabrine Rekik, Marcos Regis Vescovi, Eric Circlaeys
  • Efficient coding of source video sequences partitioned into tiles
    Patent number: 11606574
    Abstract: Techniques are disclosed for coding video data in which frames from a video source are partitioned into a plurality of tiles of common size, and the tiles are coded as a virtual video sequence according to motion-compensated prediction, each tile treated as having respective temporal location of the virtual video sequence. The coding scheme permits relative allocation of coding resources to tiles that are likely to have greater significance in a video coding session, which may lead to certain tiles that have low complexity or low motion content to be skipped during coding of the tiles for select source frames. Moreover, coding of the tiles may be ordered to achieve low coding latencies during a coding session.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: May 26, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: Dazhong Zhang, Peikang Song, Beibei Wang, Giribalan Gopalan, Albert E. Keinath, Christopher M. Garrido, David R. Conrad, Hsi-Jung Wu, Ming Jin, Hang Yuan, Xiaohua Yang, Xiaosong Zhou, Vikrant Kasarabada, Davide Concion, Eric L. Chien, Bess C. Chan, Karthick Santhanam, Gurtej Singh Chandok
  • Mitigation of tearing from intra-frame pause
    Patent number: 11605330
    Abstract: Embodiments presented herein relate to reducing visual artifacts on an electronic display caused by an intra-frame pause. To do so, the intra-frame pause may be divided into smaller intra-frame pause segments. The intra-frame pause segments may be applied to the display during different image frames and/or at different locations on the electronic display. For example, each intra-frame pause segment may be applied to a different location on the electronic display. In some embodiments, multiple intra-frame pause segments may be applied during a single image frame. In some embodiments, the intra-frame pause segments may be applied to various image frames and at various location on the electronic display according to a pattern. To reduce band flickering that may be caused by the different locations of the intra-frame pause segments, an emission duty of one or more rows of pixels of the display may be adjusted.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 29, 2022
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Myungjoon Choi, Jie Won Ryu, Hyunwoo Nho, Xiaokai Li, Kaikai Guo, Szu-Hsien Lee, Rungrot Kitsomboonloha, Pei-En Chang, Amit Nayyar, Vehbi Calayir
  • Remote user interface
    Patent number: 11604571
    Abstract: Target electronic devices can be remotely controlled using a personal electronic device are disclosed. The personal electronic device can identify target devices that are responsive to remote control. The personal electronic device displays graphical user interface objects that, when selected, cause the personal electronic device to instruct the target electronic device to perform an operation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 28, 2018
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Imran Chaudhri, Stephen O. Lemay, Alan C. Dye, Christopher Patrick Foss, Lawrence Y. Yang, David Chance Graham, Jonathan P. Ive
  • Multipoint touchscreen
    Patent number: 11604547
    Abstract: A touch panel having a transparent capacitive sensing medium configured to detect multiple touches or near touches that occur at the same time and at distinct locations in the plane of the touch panel and to produce distinct signals representative of the location of the touches on the plane of the touch panel for each of the multiple touches is disclosed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 27, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Steve Hotelling, Joshua A. Strickon, Brian Q. Huppi
  • Substrate having a visually imperceptible texture for providing variable coefficients of friction between objects
    Patent number: 11604514
    Abstract: Disclosed herein is a substrate for an electronic device. The substrate has a visually imperceptible surface texture that exhibits different coefficients of friction on various input objects. In some implementations, the texture of the textured substrate is created using a gas etching process.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 14, 2016
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: Naoto Matsuyuki, Dale N. Memering, Matthew S. Rogers, Victor Luzzato, Naoki Okahata
  • Coating for improving loudspeaker sound quality
    Patent number: 11606640
    Abstract: Aspects are disclosed of an acoustically active coating. The coating is a porous coating having a thickness and including between 2% and 30% by mass of a binder and between 70% and 98% by mass of a zeolite. The coating comprises a plurality of convex shapes connected by concave connectors and has a distribution of pore sizes. Other embodiments are disclosed and claimed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 6, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: Juergen Sauer, Veronika Wagner
  • Multi-scan touch sensing system and method
    Patent number: 11604540
    Abstract: In some examples, a touch screen can perform a first touch scan to obtain first touch data and a second touch scan to obtain second touch data. The touch data resulting from the second touch scan may exclude respective noise (e.g., display-to-touch crosstalk (DTX) noise) or may include a reduced amount of the respective noise. In some examples, the electronic device can subtract the second touch data from the first touch data to obtain an estimate of the noise in the first touch data. In some examples, this noise estimate can be subtracted from the first touch data and an action can be performed based on the first touch data with the noise estimate removed.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 22, 2022
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Eric S. Winokur, Andreas Johannes Koeberl, John Brandon Laflen, Mir Hamza Mahmood, Narmadha Vijayakumar
  • Stylus for electronic devices
    Patent number: 11604523
    Abstract: A user input system including a stylus and an electronic device. A user may manipulate the stylus across an input surface of the electronic device and the movement may be detected using axially-aligned electric fields generated by the stylus. The stylus may also include a force-sensitive structure that can be used to estimate a force applied to the electronic device by the stylus.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 8, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Aidan N. Zimmerman, Wingshan Wong, Kevin Armendariz, Nathan Bohney, Christopher Pasma, Mahmoud Amini, Brenton A. Baugh, Ryan P. Brooks
  • Wireless listening device
    Patent number: 11606637
    Abstract: A portable listening device comprising: a device housing defining an internal cavity; an acoustic port formed through the device housing; an audio driver disposed within the device housing and aligned to emit sound through the acoustic port; a multifunction input button coupled to the device housing, the multifunction input button having a distal end and a proximate end, a centerline between the distal and proximate ends and an axis of rotation located between the center line and the proximate end; an electronic circuit disposed within the device housing that requires power to operate and is configured to detect activation of the button; and a battery disposed within the device housing and operable to provide power to the electronic circuit.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 6, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: Duy P. Le, Ryan Ott, Robert A. Boyd, Christina J. Smiechowski, Kjell F. Ekman, Yufan Liao, Wenjie Zhuang
  • Exposure of panoramas
    Patent number: 11606498
    Abstract: Various implementations disclosed herein include devices, systems, and methods that generate exposed panoramic image data of an environment. For example, an example process may include obtaining panoramic image data including pixel values corresponding to light received by one or more image capture devices from multiple angles in a physical environment, generating blurred panoramic image data by adjusting the individual pixel values based on values of a subset of other values of the pixel values, selecting an area of the blurred panoramic image data, and determining an exposure for the panoramic image data based on the area of the blurred panoramic image data.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 7, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventor: Haarm-Pieter Duiker
  • Determining relevant information based on third party information and user interactions
    Patent number: 11604661
    Abstract: A system for determining relevant information based on user interactions may include a processor configured to receive application data from one or more applications, the application data including features related to user activity from the one or more applications, the one or more application including applications local to the device that are stored in the memory and applications external to the device. The processor may be further configured to provide, using a machine learning (ML) model, a relevance score for each of one or more user interface (UI) elements based on each of the features. The processor may be further configured to sort one or more UI elements based on a ranking of the relevance scores. The processor may be further configured to provide, as output, the one or more UI elements based at least in part on the ranking.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 9, 2018
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Giovanni M. Agnoli, Matthew J. Sundstrom, Conrad B. Kramer, Kyle T. Howarth, William C. MacCartney, Joshua R. Ford, Paul W. Salzman, Ari R. Weinstein, Roozbeh Mahdavian, Joshua C. Weinberg, Jared K. McGann
  • Force-balanced micromirror with electromagnetic actuation
    Patent number: 11604347
    Abstract: A scanning device includes a planar scanning mirror disposed within a frame and having a reflective upper surface. A pair of flexures have respective first ends connected to the frame and respective second ends connected to the mirror at opposing ends of a rotational axis of the mirror. A rotor including a permanent magnet is disposed on the lower surface of the mirror. A stator includes first and second cores disposed in proximity to the rotor on opposing first and second sides of the rotational axis and first and second coils of wire wound respectively on the cores. A drive circuit drives the first and second coils with respective electrical currents including a first component selected so as to control a transverse displacement of the mirror and a second component selected so as to control a rotation of the mirror about the rotational axis.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 9, 2020
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: Noel Axelrod, Raviv Erlich, Yuval Gerson
  • Retail fixture
    Patent number: D980660
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 5, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Caleb Ferris, Kully Kraig Mandon, Julien Phillip Stockwell
  • Display screen or portion thereof with graphical user interface
    Patent number: D980851
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 25, 2021
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Markus Hagele, Stephen O. Lemay, Wyatt R. Mitchell, Parthiban Mohanraj
  • Display screen or portion thereof with animated graphical user interface
    Patent number: D980862
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 13, 2022
    Date of Patent: March 14, 2023
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Ryan Wonmeng Apuy, Zachery Webster Kennedy, YunJae Kim, Giovanni S. Luis, Sean Patrick O'Brien, Ryan D. Shelby, William Andreas Viglakis