Back in May 2015 Patently Apple posted a patent report titled "Apple Files a European Patent that Advances their Work on an Exciting Video Headset Device." Today, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office officially granted Apple this patent titled "Adjusting media display in a personal display system based on perspective."

The patent figure that Apple has chosen to best represent this invention/granted patent is FIG. 5 as noted below.

Apple's patent FIG. 5 shows a schematic view of an illustrative display screen for selecting seats in a theater in accordance with one embodiment of the invention. In some embodiments, the personal display device may provide the user with an opportunity to view media as if the user were in a known theater, park or hall. For example, the personal display device may provide the user with an opportunity to view media associated with a baseball game as if the user were in a baseball stadium (e.g., Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium).

Display screen #500 may include listings #502 of selectable theaters for which representative information is stored on the personal display device. As used herein, the term theater will be understood to include any suitable movie theaters, performing art theaters, auditoriums, lecture halls, sports stadiums, or any other suitable environment for attending a performance. The user may select a listing #502 by placing highlight region #504 over the listing.

The user may add a new theater to the listings by selecting add option #506. In response to receiving a user selection of add option 506, the personal display device may allow the user to enter information for the new theater. In some embodiments, the personal display device may provide an interface for the user to create a customized theater. In some embodiments, the personal display device may access a database that the user may search to identify a particular theater. In response to receiving a selection of a particular theater, the personal display device may download a seating map and other information for the selected particular theater and store the information on the personal display device, the electronic device, or both.

Once the user has selected a particular theater from the listings, the personal display device may display a representation of the available seats in seating map #508. The personal display device may identify the user's current viewing position using current seat highlight #510. One or more seats or sections of seating map may be selectable, such that in response to a selection of a particular seat, the displayed media may be adjusted to reflect the selected seat. In response to receiving a selection of a seat or section using highlight region #512, the personal display device may adjust the displayed media to provide a preview of the newly selected viewing position to the user. For example, the media display may be adjusted to simulate a viewing experience from any seat in a movie theater (e.g., a back left side seat, a middle-center seat, or a front-center seat). In addition, the personal display device may overlay or display elements of the selected theater on the display. For example, the personal display device may display the outline of another user's head in a movie theater, or particular architecture of the selected theater. In some embodiments, the overlaid elements of the theater may be operative to move to further enhance the user's viewing experience (e.g., see a fan stand up and move at a sports stadium, or watch a curtain open and close at the beginning and end of the media).

In some embodiments, surround sound (e.g., Dolby Digital, DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD, MP3 Sound, and theatrical film 5.1 surround sound formats, etc.) integrated in the personal display device may be adjusted based on the user's selected viewing position or any other configuration. As a result, a user sitting in the front-center of the movie theater may hear sounds differently than a user sitting in the back left side or middle-center of the theater. As another example, audio may be louder if a user zooms in to the displayed media, and softer if the user zooms out of the displayed media. Persons skilled in the art will appreciate that any suitable type of audio adjustments, such as, for example, 3D sound effects or room equalization, can be made when a user selects different viewing positions in a theater.

In some embodiments, depending on the content of the media that is displayed, the personal display device can dynamically adjust a user's viewing position to an optimal location. For example, if a user is watching a football game, the personal display device #300 (FIG. 3 below) can adjust the user's viewing position based on the location of the plays.

In some embodiments, information for different viewing positions can be embedded in the media, automatically determined by the personal display device or any combination thereof. For example, the personal display device can determine based on video (e.g., yard markers on the field) and/or audio processing (e.g., the sportscaster's voice) where a football play is being made. In response to determining the location, the personal display device can calculate the optimal viewing position and correspondingly adjust the viewing position for the user.

Apple's patent FIG. 1 shows a perspective view of a personal display device; FIG. 3 shows a simplified block diagram of an illustrative personal display device.

Apple's granted patent 9,880,720 was originally filed in Q1 2015 and published today by the US Patent and Trademark Office.

It should be noted that this isn't a design patent, so the design presented in this patent is only used to convey a generic video headset and not what it will actually look like should Apple proceed with this product.

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