Currently, turning on closed captions or subtitles on videos played on the iPhone, for instance, can be quite difficult. Apple’s new patent includes an illustration of video content that is playing in full-screen mode on an iPhone-like device that has an overlying and partially transparent navigation panel. The panel contains buttons for different functions, and may include a button for easily turning closed captions on and off. In addition, the system provides users with the ability to control the look of onscreen subtitles by choosing font styles, colours, sizes as well as the style of box the text will be presented in.
The third major feature would see your mobile device take a sample of ambient noise from the environment around you. The sampled noise may trigger actions such as turning on closed captions.
For instance, if you walk into a very noisy shopping centre while watching a TV show on your iPhone, your phone will recognise that the noise around you is very loud and this triggers certain actions, such as automatically turning on closed caption and muting the audio on your TV show. Different levels of ambient noise may trigger different actions. In a less noisy environment, closed captions may be turned on but instead of the sound being muted, the audio volume is turned up as well.
The patent takes this one step further and adds more information gathered by other sensors such as GPS, ambient light sensors or accelerometers. For example, if you are in a noisy shopping centre, the action or actions that are triggered by the surrounding noise could be recorded in a database along with information about your location which is supplied via your GPS. When you next enter the shopping centre, the same action or actions are performed.
Whether we'll see any of these features in Apple’s newest iPhone operating system, iOS 4, due for release on 21 June, is unknown at this time.
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