Apple Granted Patent for Motion Controllable Dual Display Portable Media Device

Apple has been granted a patent today for their invention relating to an interactive operation of a portable media device having at least two displays only one of which can be presented at a time. More particularly, a method and an apparatus are described for using controlled motions to modify operations of the portable media device.

Apple's patent discusses interactive operation of a dual display portable media device having at least two displays mounted in a single piece housing in such a way that only one display can be presented to the user at a time.

In one embodiment, the displays are mounted back to back in the single piece housing. It should be noted that in the context of this discussion, the display that can be viewed by the user is referred to as a primary display whereas the other display out of view of the user (at least temporarily) is referred to as a secondary display.

By interactive operation it is meant that the user can modify an operating state of the portable media device or content presented by at least one of the displays by moving the portable media device in any number of pre-defined ways. For example, the secondary display can be instructed to alter any visual content currently displayed as a result of a controlled movement applied to the portable media device. The controlled movement can include, for example, rotating the portable media device around any one (or more) of at least three predefined rotational axes, or translating (in an accelerated or non-accelerated manner) the portable media device along any one.

For example, if the portable media device is an electronic book (also referred to as a e-book) and a specific page of an identified book digitally stored in the e-book is being viewed at the primary display, then by rotating the e-book "end over end" (i.e., rotating about x axis of FIG. 4) the secondary display can be instructed to present a table of contents of the identified book to be viewed once the rotation has progressed far enough to bring the secondary display into view (where is now becomes the primary display) – (See Below Patent FIG. 4.)

Moreover, if the initial conditions of the e-book are modified (such as selecting a word from the displayed page) prior to rotating, then rotating the e-book in the same manner as before would result not in the table of contents being displayed but a dictionary page presenting at least one definition of the selected word, or words.

Apple's patent FIG. 20 shows a flow diagram illustrating process for using a controlled movement to modify an operating state of a portable media device.

Apple credits Benjamin Rottler and Michael Ingrassia as the inventors of granted patent 8,791,898 which was originally filed in Q1 2010 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office. To review today's granted patent claims and details, see Apple's patent.

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