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Apple Researching Methods to Offer Customized Control of Browser-Based Audio Content

Wow, I am totally blindsided by this one. Its like waking up realizing you need cut, copy, paste this whole time but never realized it until someone offered it to you. I am so sick of those ads that shout "Congratulations you have just won....(wii, ipod, etc.) or peoples myspace pages with gawd awful music or some webpages that still play annoying midi files in the background.

THANK YOU APPLE!
 
stainlessliquid said:
Vista already does this for all applications
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That's nice, but the Apple idea is much more than that -- it has more context that just "it's Safari".

It's a great idea. Not a great patentable idea though -- big thumbs down for Apple for trying to patent the glaringly obvious.
 
About time!

Audio Hijack Pro already lets you do this on the Mac... so, the structure is already there for apps...

I think what they are really researching is the ability to tell the computer which IP audio to accept, and at what level... they should really just do it for the whole app. If one page is pulling from different IP's then what.. I'm gonna close a noisy bowser window anyways... faster to close then mute. Just give me a mute and volume for the app... and make it one tiny little button!

Heck, I want my browser to play NO sound at ALL times. I would just un-mute it sometimes.
 
I would LOVE this. I have ran into this problem several times and not being able to mute or lower browser content is annoying. I'd like to be able to mute those stupid adds that have sound.
 
Now implement this on the iPhone; I do love to sleep in, but system volume should not interfere with my wake up alarm call 😡
 
Just use existing technology?

Hear (http://www.joesoft.com/) already has this capability, including graphic eq for every application. Perhaps apple should consider acquiring the technology and implementing it in future updates (much like they did with spaces)...
 
I've never had a problem with this. If I go to a website and audio starts and I can't turn it off within 5 seconds I close the browser window. Or if I plan to listen to music on Myspace or something like that I pause iTunes.
 
darthmullet said:
Hear (http://www.joesoft.com/) already has this capability, including graphic eq for every application. Perhaps apple should consider acquiring the technology and implementing it in future updates (much like they did with spaces)...
Click to expand...

All apps need graphic eq. My 1st gen MacBook's speakers are so damn quiet on maximum volume. I was trying to show someone a video clip the other day and they couldn't hear it above the whirring of the fans (thanks Flash).
 
Yes! Yes! Yes!

Oh JOY!

I remember sending in feedback with the bug reporter somewhere around 2006 or 2007 when a new version of Safari came out, asking for exactly this. (Not per application, as apparently Vista has done, but for particular sites.) This was just about the time when MySpace was becoming very popular and also very annoying, and those noisy popups were also appearing. It seems <i>maybe</i> my request was noticed and forwarded for consideration.

Now what would be nice would be to get rid of the tab metaphor for organising page views, go to a much more versatile and powerful OmniWeb-style thumbnails metaphor married with an in-app Exposé function for at a glance navigation, plus badges on thumbnails to show you which ones have audio content. You could conceivably use badges for all other sorts of content: problematic stuff like Flash video scripts etc., padlocks for secure sites, incorporated red dots in the superimposed 'x' close buttons (like forthe close button in windows) for pages with unsaved or unsent text, etc....
 
I think the patent should be thrown out, this is not deserving of a patent.

That said, I would love to see this implemented in every web browser on the market (hence the advantage of having the patent refused). Even if not, I do use Safari, so if they put it in, I will be very appreciative.

jW
 
Yes, thank you, it's about time!

This is what I have wanted for ages. It annoys me a lot. I listen to a lot of music on my laptop and navigate through various sites that autoplay seriously annoying audio. Added to that the annoying click back to iTunes every time there is something I actually want to hear would be addressed here. Well done Apple once again!
 
Tones2 said:
Yea this is nice, but how is this PATENTABLE. Jeez.......the things they try to patent these days. 🙄

Also, what's the deal with the PICTURES they submit with the patent. They always look like someone's 10 year old child has drawn them. So this is the best picture they can submit to show the ideas of the patent?

Tony
Click to expand...

You know you have to patent everything these days so that in the future they don't get sued by patent trolls.
 
yourstation said:
This is what I have wanted for ages. It annoys me a lot. I listen to a lot of music on my laptop and navigate through various sites that autoplay seriously annoying audio. Added to that the annoying click back to iTunes every time there is something I actually want to hear would be addressed here. Well done Apple once again!
Click to expand...

Agreed, it's no fun surfing to MySpace and someone's page blasts you with their crappy music. This browser feature will be welcome. 🙂
 
Facebook chat

For me, this would be most useful to mute that incredibly annoying alert sound when chatting on Facebook.
 
I hate to say this, but Windows has had a full featured mixer built in since Win95. You can control individual sound outputs and inputs volume, their bass and treble, and their balance. You can also select a recording source other than line in or mic. Like, for instance, wave out or "what you heard". You'd have to buy audiohijack to do the something similar. Its the one thing I seriously miss in OS X.
 
Hattig said:
It's absolutely ridiculous - it's just a table of URLs / IP addresses and their audio settings. Maybe they could add "block flash" for this site as another column? How about the default view zoom for that site? How about another column to disable javascript on a per-site basis?
Click to expand...

Apple is patenting either the concept or their own implementation of the concept (I don't have time to read it). If it IS obvious, then a patent would not be issued. Those are the rules, so the constant remarks about "it's so obvious" and "ridiculous" are fairly oblivious of patent requirements. If there are no patents, then perhaps it's not so obvious after all.

And if Apple is patenting the specific implementation of the concept, unique in its form, then it is indeed patentable.

Regarding the table, it's not a claim in the patent, it's just for clarification or possible preference pane display regarding its implementation.

You guys have to read something other than blogs sometimes.
 
It's About Time.

😀

It's annoying having to scroll through pages, especially MySpace, to turn off the audio, and some pages don't even give you the option; you just have to mute your speakers.

Anyways, thanx Apple Geniuses for thinking this up. :apple:
 
This would be awesome. I'm always listening to music when browsing the internet, it'll be nice not to have interruptions.
 
Why would Apple even bother trying to patent this? Other people have already created tools that allow you to do it.

This patent is moot.
 
spice weasel said:
I'm sorry, but I just can't get over the misspelling of mute. How do you submit a patent application with such a glaring error?
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You can blame Steve for that. He's the one that said people don't read anymore, and forgetting how to spell is a sign that he may be right, at least for Apple's patent writers.
 
first thing Apple could do is to move the volume on the keyboards to the left. Having the sound control all the way over to the right is horrid. Especially for people like me who rely on the function keys.
 
"ya know what really grinds my gears?"

I hate when I'm using iTunes to "DJ" an event and every time that I get a notification window (ie: are you sure you want to delete this song from this playlist), I get that "thud" noise resonating throughout the party.
 
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