Patents Assigned to Apple
  • Patent number: 11212803
    Abstract: Disclosed herein are system, method, and computer program product embodiments for synchronizing the switching of different wireless platforms to different portions of a frequency band. An embodiment, at a first wireless platform, operates by receiving a band switch request message from a second wireless platform, wherein the band switch request message comprises a band switch delay period for the second wireless platform. The embodiment calculates a band switch time based on a band switch delay period for the first wireless platform and the band switch delay period for the second wireless platform. The embodiment transmits a band switch accept message comprising the band switch time to the second wireless platform. The embodiment sets a first filter to operate on a second portion of the frequency band based on the band switch time. The embodiment then operates on the second portion of the frequency band.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 10, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Adam B. Lapede, Daniel R. Borges, Mohammed W. Mokhtar, Helena D. O'Shea, Alon Paycher, Oren Shani, Matthew L. Semersky, Sriram Hariharan, Sreeraman Anantharaman, Khaye Loon Wei, Andrew D. Smart
  • Patent number: 11207795
    Abstract: A mold apparatus to form a ceramic (or glass) includes a first mold portion having a first coefficient of thermal expansion and a second mold portion having a second coefficient of thermal expansion. In some embodiments, the first mold portion and/or the second mold portion are substantially immiscible with the ceramic material, such as silicon oxide, at a temperature greater than 600° C. In some embodiments, the first coefficient of thermal expansion and the second coefficient of thermal expansion are substantially similar to that of the glass or ceramic material. In some embodiments, the first coefficient of thermal expansion is different from the second coefficient of thermal expansion. In some embodiments, the first mold portion and the second mold portion contain a surface coating and a passivation layer.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 20, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Jeffrey L. Mattlin, Abhijeet Misra, Herng-Jeng Jou, James A. Wright, James A. Yurko, Lei Gao, Weiming Huang, William A. Counts
  • Patent number: 11212846
    Abstract: Enhanced random access procedures for link-budget-limited user equipment (UE) devices are disclosed. A user equipment device may transmit a first message containing a Physical Random Access Channel (PRACH). The PRACH contains instances of a Zadoff-Chu sequence, and may be transmitted repeatedly as part of a single random attempt, to facilitate correlation data combining at the base station. The available Zadoff-Chu sequences may be partitioned among a plurality of sets, each set being associated with a respective Doppler shift range (or frequency hop pattern or time repetition pattern). A UE device may signal Doppler shift (or other information) to the base station by selection of one of the sets. The first PRACH transmission and the following PRACH transmission may occur in consecutive subframes. A UE device may select from a special set of Zadoff-Chu sequences (different from a conventional set of sequences), to signal its status as a link-budget-limited device.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 14, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Tarik Tabet, Youngjae Kim, Syed Aon Mujtaba
  • Patent number: 11209870
    Abstract: Accessory units for electronic devices are described. The accessory units can include a panel that has a flexible substrate with a network of structural elements that are arranged to fold the panel into different forms and shapes similar to origami. For example, the panel can be bent along one or more fold lines that are defined by adjacent structural elements. In some cases, the panels are configured to fold at preferred fold lines, sometimes in non-parallel orientations with respect to each other. In one case, the accessory can be unfolded into a flat configuration and serve as a cover for the electronic device. In some cases, the accessory units can be brought behind and support an electronic device at different angles with respect to a support surface. The accessory units can also include features such as keyboards, touch pads, or other input devices for the electronic devices.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Zhengyu Li, Chia Chi Wu, Qiliang Xu
  • Patent number: 11211020
    Abstract: A display may have rows and columns of pixels. Gate lines may be used to supply gate signals to rows of the pixels. Data lines may be used to supply data signals to columns of the pixels. The data lines may include alternating even and odd data lines. Data lines may be organized in pairs each of which includes one of the odd data lines and an adjacent one of the even data lines. Demultiplexer circuitry may be configured dynamically during data loading and pixel sensing operations. During data loading, data from display driver circuitry may be supplied, alternately to odd pairs of the data lines and even pairs of the data lines. During sensing, the demultiplexer circuitry may couple a pair of the even data lines to sensing circuitry in the display driver circuitry and then may couple a pair of the odd data lines to the sensing circuitry.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: March 29, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Shinya Ono, Zino Lee, Gihoon Choo, Hassan Edrees, Chin-Wei Lin
  • Patent number: 11210520
    Abstract: In one implementation, a method includes: obtaining image data from an image sensor; recognizing a portion of an object within the image data; obtaining synthesized reality (SR) content—such as mixed reality, augmented reality, augmented virtuality, or virtual reality content—associated with the portion of the object; and displaying the SR content in association with the portion of the object. In some implementations, the SR content is dependent on the orientation of an electronic device or the user relative to the object. In some implementations, the SR content is generated based on sensor data associated with the object.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: January 18, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: Ian M. Richter, Mohamed Selim Ben Himane, Peter Meier
  • Patent number: 11212605
    Abstract: An electronic device including a housing comprising one or more walls that define an interior cavity and that include a first wall having an audio opening extending through the first wall from an exterior surface of the housing to the interior cavity; a bracket disposed within the interior cavity and having first and second opposing surfaces, a first channel extending along the first surface and having a first end spaced apart from and surrounding the audio opening, and a second channel fluidly coupled to and extending perpendicular to the first channel through the second surface at a location laterally displaced from the audio opening; and a microphone disposed within the interior cavity and coupled to the second surface of the bracket over the second channel, wherein the bracket cooperates with the first wall to create an acoustic pathway that extends from the audio opening through the first wall, through the first channel and through the second channel to the microphone.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 7, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: APPLE INC.
    Inventors: Michael K. Mondry, Allegra Shum, Brian A. Argyres, Benjamin J. Pope, Sherry Cao
  • Patent number: 11209783
    Abstract: A watch can include a user input component that employs an optical sensor to receive input from a user. The input components provide an ability for a user to interact with the watch in a manner similar to how a user would interact with a crown that is rotatable and/or translatable. The user can provide motions and gestures near the input component that the input component can detect and interpret and user inputs to control an aspect of the watch. The motions and gestures provided by the user can be directly detected with optical systems of the input component, so that the number of moving parts are reduced and space within the watch is more efficiently utilized. While providing these benefits, the input component provides a user experience that simulates user interactions with a crown that is rotatable and/or translatable.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 26, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Tyler S. Bushnell, Sameer Pandya, Steven P. Cardinali
  • Patent number: 11211030
    Abstract: An electronic device may include a display that displays virtual reality content. Control circuitry may estimate a brightness adaptation state of a user that is wearing the electronic device. The control circuitry may select a tone mapping curve and brightness level for the virtual reality content based on the user's adaptation state. To estimate the user's adaptation state, the control circuitry may gather ambient light information from an ambient light sensor, may gather physiological attributes of the user such as blink rate, pupil size, and eye openness from a camera, and may gather gaze position information from gaze detection circuitry. The control circuitry may optimize the brightness of the display based on the user's current adaptation state, or the control circuitry may shift the brightness of the display away from the user's adaptation level to help guide the adaptation state to the desired level.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 27, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Nicolas P. Bonnier, Teun R. Baar, Christina G. Gambacorta, Jiaying Wu
  • Patent number: 11210884
    Abstract: An electronic device having at least one operational setting, such as a power setting, with at least a first state and a second state. The electronic device may also include an access controller that can receive state data and authorization data from an external source such as a remote control. The access controller may enable a state of the operational setting upon receipt of proper authorization data received from or related to the output from at least one biometric sensor associated with the remote control.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 20, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Michael DiVincent, Nicole J. Hollopeter, Ruben Caballero
  • Patent number: 11210279
    Abstract: A distributed offline indexing system uses a set of data processing systems in a distributed computing environment to create an index database that can store, for example, data about geographical or geospatial areas. The index database can be distributed across a plurality of database shards such that each shard includes an index file and a DB file. The index files include keys that refer to values in their corresponding DB files. The keys are used to look-up their corresponding values at search time. At indexing time, the keys are hashed, with an entropy creating hash, to distribute the keys across the shards.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 13, 2017
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Rachid Kachemir, Krishna M. Behara, Bradley C. Kellett
  • Patent number: 11211587
    Abstract: A display may have an array of organic light-emitting diode (OLED) pixels that each have OLED layers interposed between a cathode and an anode. Voltage may be applied to the anode of each pixel to control the magnitude of emitted light. The conductivity of the OLED layers may allow leakage current to pass between neighboring anodes in the display. To reduce leakage current and cross-talk, the thickness of at least one of the OLED layers may be reduced. To maintain the optical cavity of the pixels, transparent optical spacer structures may be inserted. Alternatively, the thickness of the anodes can be increased. To accommodate a common prime layer within the OLED layers, the optical spacers or anodes may be separately patterned to have different thicknesses. Grating structures and photonic crystal structures may be embedded as part of the optical spacers to help control emission at selected viewing angles.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 25, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Kwang Ohk Cheon, Aleksandr N. Polyakov, Chen-Yue Li, Chuan-Jung Lin, KiBeom Kim, Nai-Chih Kao, Rui Liu, Wendi Chang
  • Patent number: 11211036
    Abstract: Systems, apparatuses, and methods for implementing a timestamp based display update mechanism. A display control unit includes a timestamp queue for storing timestamps, wherein each timestamp indicates when a corresponding frame configuration set should be fetched from memory. At pre-defined intervals, the display control unit may compare the timestamp of the topmost entry of the timestamp queue to a global timer value. If the timestamp is earlier than the global timer value, the display control unit may pop the timestamp entry and fetch the frame next configuration set from memory. The display control unit may then apply the updates of the frame configuration set to its pixel processing elements. After applying the updates, the display control unit may fetch and process the source pixel data and then drive the pixels of the next frame to the display.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Brijesh Tripathi, Arthur L. Spence, Joshua P. de Cesare, Ilie Garbacea, Guy Cote, Mahesh B. Chappalli, Malcolm D. Gray, Christopher P. Tann
  • Patent number: D939256
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 30, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Jean-Marc Gady, Gabriel J. Lamb, Indhu V. Solayappan, Seung Chae Kang, Adrian E. Magrina, Taylor Hoff
  • Patent number: D939509
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 30, 2018
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Richard Hung Minh Dinh, Richard P. Howarth, Scott A. Myers, David A. Pakula, Tang Yew Tan
  • Patent number: D939512
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 2, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Jody Akana, Molly Anderson, Bartley K. Andre, Shota Aoyagi, Anthony Michael Ashcroft, Marine C. Bataille, Jeremy Bataillou, Adam T. Clavelle, Erik Geddes Pieter De Jong, Markus Diebel, M. Evans Hankey, Julian Hoenig, Richard P. Howarth, Jonathan P. Ive, Julian Jaede, Duncan Robert Kerr, Martin Melcher, Peter Russell-Clarke, Benjamin Andrew Shaffer, Mikael Silvanto, Sung-Ho Tan, Clement Tissandier, Eugene Antony Whang, Rico Zörkendörfer
  • Patent number: D939523
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 29, 2019
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Brian R. Frick, Joe Randall Howard, Jonathan Lochhead, Timothy Benjamin Martin, Christopher John Sanders
  • Patent number: D939528
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 14, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Joseph Mark Willoughby Luxton, Alan C. Dye
  • Patent number: D939535
    Type: Grant
    Filed: April 19, 2021
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Kevin Will Chen, Aurelio Guzmán, Wan Si Wan, Christopher I. Wilson
  • Patent number: D939570
    Type: Grant
    Filed: June 22, 2020
    Date of Patent: December 28, 2021
    Assignee: Apple Inc.
    Inventors: Alan C. Dye, Lucas Daniel Langhus, Joseph Mark Willoughby Luxton, Christopher I. Wilson