Apple patent is for host device shutdown system
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Dec 20, 2007 at 9:40am
An Apple patent (number 20070294546) for a host device shutdown system has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It relates generally to host/client device systems where the client device includes personal, portable electronic devices such as media players, radios, cell phones and the like.
According to Apple, a host device, such as a personal computer, is shut down only after a client device (such as a portable personal media player) having a client device shutdown condition (such as a media player battery is fully charged) is satisfied. Such conditions include recharging a media player battery and completing transferring data files between host device and media player.
Here’s Apple’s summary of the invention: “A method, computer program product, and consumer product for shutting down a host device connected to a client device only when a client device shutdown condition is satisfied. In one embodiment, the host device is a personal computer and the client device is a portable personal media player having a rechargeable battery unit. A user can select that the personal computer can only be shutdown if the media player rechargeable battery unit is fully recharged.
“In another embodiment, computer program product executable by a processor unit for shutting down a host device connected to a client device is disclosed that includes computer code for shutting down the host device only when a client device shutdown condition is satisfied and computer readable medium for storing the computer code.
“In yet another embodiment, A consumer electronic product having a host portion and a client portion is disclosed wherein in order to shut down the host portion, a client portion shutdown condition must be satisfied.”
The inventor is Michael M. Lee. The graphic below shows a system in accordance with an embodiment of the invention.
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
