Route Tracking and Screen Mirroring Shown in New Apple Patent

[MacRumors]

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office today released a patent application filed by Apple back in January of 2013, describing a method by which an iPhone or iPad can provide specifically detailed GPS path information to another device after given proper authorization (via AppleInsider).

In the vein of Find My Friends, which allows rudimentary static location-based tracking services and slightly more in-depth parental controls, today's patent application would add another level of detail to the service. The patent suggests providing location- and path-based information accumulated by one device in the visual form of a digital route on a second device following the first.

Because the device receiving the information would be constantly updated with the first device's movements, it would allow users to follow someone in real time. The patent even mentions the receiving device could generate "spoken word directions", so if a user is driving a car, they wouldn't have to constantly be staring at the phone's screen.

A device in motion can record data about the path it travels and send the path data to another device. A user of the second device can then use the data to see where the first user traveled and/or travel the same path as did the first user.

For example, while the first user is driving a car, she could be running a maps application on the first device, and share the path she is travelling with the user of the second device while the second user is also driving a car. The second device could then display the path in an instance of the maps application running on the second device, or the second device could display directions the second user could use to follow the first user, or the second device could generate spoken word directions the second user could use to follow the first user, all in real time.

The patent mentions that while the program would be able to run on "a mobile communications network (e.g., 3G, LTE, WiMAX, etc.), a wireless LAN (e.g., 802.11), or another kind of wireless network", sometimes an intermediary, like iCloud, may be used as well. There's even a mode that could ignore the path sharing altogether, allowing the first device to share directions to a specific location with the second device, automatically generating a route that may be quicker than following the first device's path.

Also of note is a "mirroring mode" that shows "exactly the same view" on the second device as the user on the first device is seeing and interacting with, aiming to further assist the second device's understanding of the route.

As AppleInsider notes, the patent credits Eran Sandel, Elad Harush, and Roman Guy as its inventors. As with all other patents, today's "Sharing location information among devices" application is less of a confirmation of upcoming software by Apple and more of an intriguing look at ways the company may be looking to expand its little-used map-based features in the future.

Article Link: Route Tracking and Screen Mirroring Shown in New Apple Patent

 

[Smith288]

Useful, I supposed.

I would like apple to create a sort of Screen Sharing tool like they have in OSX to assist people with their phones. Having an in law hold up their iphone facetime camera to their ipad so I can see what they are seeing to assist them in doing something is not what i'd call convenient.

 

[itpromike]

How is this different than what's available in iOS 8 now? If you hit details on a iMessage thread with a person and then click "share my location" (not share my current location) then it gives that person an ongoing authorization to get your location and it shows it on a map (with the person represented by a pin with their name on it) as well as updates that information as that person moves so you can follow them real time... you can also tap on their pin and then tap 'get directions'. What am I missing about this patent, that's not already there?

 

[Carlanga]

So route tracking and mirroring of GPS is patentable? I hope it's just the algorithm they created and not mirroring & track to be considered as patentable.

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How is this different than what's available in iOS 8 now? If you hit details on a iMessage thread with a person and then click "share my location" (not share my current location) then it gives that person an ongoing authorization to get your location and it shows it on a map (with the person represented by a pin with their name on it) as well as updates that information as that person moves so you can follow them real time... you can also tap on their pin and then tap 'get directions'. What am I missing about this patent, that's not already there?

The sending half of the screen to another device. Most likely this is for the iwatch and CarPlay and maybe appletv devices.

Even though they might be using the algorithm before hand it is now patent and theirs alone. So you can guess what will happen in the near future w other devices that decide to share gps location/tracking/mirroring

 

[doelcm82]

How is this different than what's available in iOS 8 now? If you hit details on a iMessage thread with a person and then click "share my location" (not share my current location) then it gives that person an ongoing authorization to get your location and it shows it on a map (with the person represented by a pin with their name on it) as well as updates that information as that person moves so you can follow them real time... you can also tap on their pin and then tap 'get directions'. What am I missing about this patent, that's not already there?

With Find My Friends or the iMessage map view, you know where your friend is at the current moment. You could check it every minute and then mark those locations on a map. Then you would know not only where they are now, but where they had been.

With route mapping feature, Apple could send your phone an update regularly and your phone could draw the route your friend took automatically. Instead of a single pin on the map, you'd see a squiggly line showing their path to get to that pin.

Route tracking isn't new. In 2008, I took a road trip with my stepmother and an iPhone. I used an app that uploaded my location periodically to a web site. My friends could log on to that web site and see where we were currently, and the route we had taken to get there.

Apple's patent probably has to do with using two (or more) iPhones to do this, instead of collecting the data on a website.

 

[Klae17]

Finally gonna find Waldo.

 

[dannyyankou]

Cool idea.

 

[ttss6]

I'm just curious, but does anyon know how many times patents reported by sites like these actually appear in shipping products? I often see many on AppleInsider that never appear again.

 

[ArtOfWarfare]

Sounds useful for finding lost people. Need to retrace the last steps before they disappeared.

Useful for everyday life? Probably not unless you're a CSI or something.

 

[EddieDeez]

Sounds exactly what the Glympse app does...... Can't believe this is patentable.

 

[newagemac]

Sounds exactly what the Glympse app does...... Can't believe this is patentable.

Of course it's patentable. Glympse is using a different method. There can be hundreds of different methods to accomplish this and they are all patentable. Do you understand how patents work?

 

[pdaholic]

This should really help with my stalking activities.

 

[HiRez]

Useful, I supposed.

I would like apple to create a sort of Screen Sharing tool like they have in OSX to assist people with their phones. Having an in law hold up their iphone facetime camera to their ipad so I can see what they are seeing to assist them in doing something is not what i'd call convenient.

I've been dying for this functionality. Gave my mom an iPad but trying to troubleshoot it from 2,500 miles away is not easy without this feature.