On this slow July 4th patent day, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a continuation patent from Apple that relates to a system and method for configuring and adjusting beam patterns output by a speaker system in response to voice commands with Siri. The invention could be executed on devices such as Macs, iDevices, Apple TV or a home theatre system.

Patently Apple covered this patent in a report posted back in 2016 titled "Apple's Siri to Control Apple TV, Stereo Speakers working with Apple's Streaming Music Service." The patent actually extends to supporting a movie service which now will translate to Apple TV+ and Arcade.

More specifically Apple's new patent claim #43 states that the "settings associated with the user are based on different content types, the different content types including music, movies, and television."

Apple's patent FIG. 7B below shows a beam pattern generated for listeners based on example voice commands.

Being that today's published patent is specifically a continuation patent, we know that the update is restricted to adjusting Apple's patent claims in one way or another, leaving the body of the patent intact.

Today we see that Apple has cancelled the original 25 patent claims and replaced them with 20 new claims as presented below from #26 – #46.

26. A method for adjusting sound emitted by a loudspeaker array, comprising: receiving a sensed sound in a listening area having speech of a user, from one or more microphone arrays that generate microphone signals, wherein the user is associated with a predefined location at which to direct a loudspeaker array output beam pattern; based on the sensed sound, determining a location of the user in the listening area at which to steer a loudspeaker array output beam pattern; steering the loudspeaker array output beam pattern at the determined location of the user in the listening area; and if the location of the user is not determinable, then steering the loudspeaker array output beam pattern at the predefined location that is associated with the user.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein determining the location of the user in the listening area comprises: determining an angle of arrival of the sensed sound based on the microphone signals of the one or more microphone arrays; and estimating the location of the user based on the angle of arrival of the sensed sound.

28. The method of claim 26, further comprising: if a designated location is specified in the sensed sound, then steering the loudspeaker array output beam pattern at the designated location instead of the determined location or the predefined location.

29. The method of claim 26, further comprising: comparing the microphone signals with one or more speech signatures to identify the user.

30. The method of claim 26, wherein the predefined location associated with the user is based on historical usage habits of the user.

31. The method of claim 26, wherein the predefined location associated with the user is based on a common or preferred seating location in the listening area.

32. The method of claim 26, further comprising: steering a second loudspeaker array output beam pattern at a second user having a location different from the user.

33. The method of claim 26, wherein settings associated with the user are based on different content types, the different content types including music, movies, and television.
34. The method of claim 33, wherein the different content types have separate setting values, including a volume setting for each of the different content types.

35. The method of claim 26, wherein the loudspeaker array output beam pattern includes music content played back to the user.
36. An audio system for adjusting sound emitted by one or more loudspeaker arrays, comprising: one or more microphone arrays that generate microphone signals; and a processor, configured to receive, through the microphone signals, a sensed sound containing speech from a user in a listening area, wherein the user is associated with a predefined location at which to direct a loudspeaker array output beam pattern; based on the sensed sound, determine a location of the user in the listening area at which to steer the output beam pattern; steer one of the output beam patterns at the determined location of the user in the listening area; and if a current location of a user is not determinable, then steer the loudspeaker array output beam pattern at the predefined location that is associated with the user.

37. The audio system of claim 36, wherein the determination of the location of the user in the listening area comprises: determining an angle of arrival of the sensed sound based on the microphone signals of the one or more microphone arrays; and estimating the location of the user based on the angle of arrival of the sensed sound.

38. The audio system of claim 36, wherein the processor is further configured to: if a designated location is specified in the sensed sound, steer the loudspeaker array output beam pattern at the designated location instead of the determined location or the predefined location.

39. The audio system of claim 36, wherein the processor is further configured to: compare the microphone signals with one or more speech signatures to identify the user.

40. The audio system of claim 36, wherein the predefined location associated with the user is based on historical usage habits of the user.

41. The audio system of claim 36, wherein the predefined location associated with the user is based on a common or preferred seating location in the listening area.

42. The audio system of claim 36, wherein the processor is further configured to: steer a second loudspeaker array output beam pattern at a second user having a location different from the user.

43. The audio system of claim 36, wherein settings associated with the user are based on different content types, the different content types including music, movies, and television.

44. The audio system of claim 36, further comprising: detecting a voice command based on the microphone signals, and in response to the voice command, equalizing audio based on preset equalization settings.

45. The audio system of claim 36, wherein the audio system is a loudspeaker cabinet.

Apple's continuation patent #20190208347 that was published today by the U.S. Patent Office was filed back in Q1 2019. Work on this invention dates back to 2013. To see more patent figures check our 2016 report here.

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