Apple Patents Reveal Global App Settings & Improvements to iPhone's Notification Dialog

November 2009

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Apple Insider has revealed couple of patents filed by Apple which could bring further improvements to iPhone's user interface.

The first filing appears to be a feature which will allow immediate access to global application settings and the second filing could bring improvements to iPhone's notification dialog that informs users of communications missed when the iPhone is in the locked state.

The first patent filing shows application icons on iPhone's home screen that have "i" in the top-right corner of the application icon similar to Apple's Dashboard widgets. However, the "i" icons will remain hidden and only show up after some sort of multi-touch gesture which will allow users to change application settings.

As per the patent filing:

"The user interface has a plurality of application icons. In response to a first gesture, the GUI changes the appearances of the application icons whose corresponding applications have user-adjustable settings."

"In response to a second gesture on a selected application icon whose appearance is changed, the GUI displays user-adjustable settings of an application that corresponds to the selected application icon. In response to one or more additional gestures, the GUI changes one or more user-adjustable settings of the application that corresponds to the selected application icon."

This feature should allow users to change global application settings which should significantly cut down on the time taken to change individual application settings.

The second patent filing shows improvements to iPhone's notification dialog that informs users of communications missed such as missed calls, new text messages and voicemails right on iPhone's home screen when the iPhone is in the locked state.

As per the patent filing:

"In response to detecting an interaction by a user with the device, the plurality of icons display notification information for the plurality of communication modalities. In response to detecting an unlock interaction by the user with the device, the device is unlocked, and a communication in the plurality of communications is presented that was received while the device was in the locked state, or information about the communication is presented."

So the filing suggests that the notification dialog would not only remain visibile when the phone is unlocked but will also provide links to directly return a missed call, reply to a new message or listen to the new voicemail.

It could probably be a feature that shows up when Push Notification service is released which is Apple's solution to run iPhone Apps in the background.

It is important to note here that Apple like so many other companies, patents ideas and so these features might never see the light of day. However, I won't be surprised to see these minor improvements in iPhone's user interface in future iPhone firmware versions.

What's your take on these patents?

[via Apple Insider]

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