Apple patent: media device with intelligent cache utilization

Posted by Dennis Sellers Jul 5, 2007 at 5:07am

A new Apple patent (number 2007015768) for a media device with intelligent cache utilization has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. First filed in 2006 and relating to (in Apple’s words) “media devices and, more particularly, to playing of media on media devices,” it seems to involve Apple’s iPod and iPhone devices. However, it could also involve other portable devices, such as laptops.

It involves a portable media device and a method for operating it. According to one aspect, a battery-powered portable media device can manage use of a mass storage device to efficiently utilize battery power. By providing a cache memory and loading the cache memory so as to provide skip support, battery power for the portable media device can be conserved (i.e., efficiently consumed). According to another aspect, a portable media device can operate efficiently in a seek mode. The seek mode is an operational mode of the portable media device in which the portable media device automatically scans through media items to assist a user in selecting a desired one of the media items.

Here’s Apple background on the invention: “Media players are becoming more popular these days. Of particular popularity are portable media players such as MP3 players or DVD players. Media players operate to play media items for their user that are stored within the media players. The media items are most commonly audio items (e.g., songs) but could also be video items (e.g., DVDs). Typically, an MP3 player will store various audio items internally on a storage disk. When the user makes a selection to play one of the stored audio items, the audio item must first be loaded into semiconductor memory (i.e., Random-Access Memory) before the audio item begins to be played. The delay in reading the rather large file for the audio item is unsatisfactory to users who are anxious to hear the audio item they have already selected to be played. Recently, advancements in MP3 players have enabled some MP3 players to begin playing an audio item before being completely loaded into semiconductor memory. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,799,226.

“Whenever a media item to be played is not stored within the semiconductor memory, the storage disk must be accessed. Unfortunately, storage disks are rather costly in terms of power consumption for small, battery-powered MP3 players. Accordingly, there is a need for improved techniques to reduce the need to access the storage disks of media players.”

And here’s the summary of the invention: “Broadly speaking, the invention relates to a portable media device and a method for operating a portable media device. According to one aspect, a battery-powered portable media device can manage use of a mass storage device to efficiently utilize battery power. By providing a cache memory and loading the cache memory so as to provide skip support, battery power for the portable media device can be conserved (i.e., efficiently consumed). According to another aspect, a portable media device can operate efficiently in a seek mode. The seek mode is an operational mode of the portable media device in which the portable media device automatically scans through media items to assist a user in selecting a desired one of the media items.

“The invention can be implemented in numerous ways, including as a method, system, device, apparatus, or computer readable medium. Several embodiments of the invention are discussed below.

“As a method for operating a media device having a cache memory as well as a disk drive for storage of media data for media items, one embodiment of the invention includes at least the operations of: receiving a selection of a particular media item to be presented by the media device, the particular media item being one of a plurality of media items organized in a sequential list; loading, in response to the selection, at least a portion of the media data for the particular media item retrieved from the disk storage to the cache memory; loading, in response to the selection, initial portions of media data for a plurality of sequentially adjacent media items from the sequential list with respect to the particular media item; and thereafter loading remaining portions of media data for a subset of the plurality of the sequentially adjacent media items from the sequential list.

“As a method for operating a media device having a cache memory as well as a disk drive for storage of media data for media items, another embodiment of the invention includes at least the operations of: receiving a selection of a particular media item to be presented by the media device, the particular media item being one of a plurality of media items organized in a sequential list; loading, in response to the selection, at least a portion of the media data for the particular media item retrieved from the disk storage to the cache memory; loading, in response to the selection, complete media data for a plurality of sequentially adjacent media items from the sequential list with respect to the particular media item; and loading, in response to the selection, only initial media data for a plurality of other sequentially adjacent media items from the sequential list.

“As a method for operating a media device having a first memory as well as a mass storage device for storage of media data for media items, one embodiment of the invention includes at least the operations of: receiving a user play selection for a selected media item from the media items; determining an amount or degree of skip support to be provided by the media device; determining media data to be stored in the first memory based on the user play selection and the amount or degree of skip support; and loading the determined media data into the first memory from the mass storage device.

“As a method for operating a media device having a cache memory as well as a disk drive for storage of media data for media items, yet another embodiment of the invention includes at least the operations of: receiving a user play selection for a selected media item from the media items; determining whether media data for the selected media item is contained in the cache memory; when it is determined that the media data for the selected media item is not contained in the cache memory, determining a media data set to be stored in the cache memory, and loading the media data set into the cache memory; retrieving the media data for the selected media item from the cache memory; initiating playing of the retrieved media data; receiving a user skip selection for another media item from the media items; determining whether media data for the another media item is contained in the cache memory; when it is determined that the media data for the another media item is not contained in the cache memory, determining another media data set to be stored in the cache memory, and loading the another media data set into the cache memory; retrieving the media data for the another media item from the cache memory; and initiating playing of the retrieved media data.

“As a computer readable medium including at least computer program code for operating a media device having a first memory as well as a mass storage device for storage of media data for media items, one embodiment of the invention includes at least: computer program code for receiving a user play selection for a selected media item from the media items; computer program code for determining an amount or degree of skip support to be provided by the media device; computer program code for determining media data to be stored in the first memory based on the user play selection and the amount or degree of skip support; and computer program code for loading the determined media data into the first memory from the mass storage device.

“As a consumer electronics product, one embodiment of the invention includes at least: a storage disk that stores a plurality of media items; a user input device that enables a user of the consumer electronics product to at least select a particular media item from the plurality of media items; a cache memory capable of storing at least one of the media items; and a processor operatively connected to the storage disk, the user input device and the cache memory. The processor causes the cache memory to support a series of skip selections by the user via the user input device. In supporting the skip selection, the processor causes the cache memory to, in advance of the skip selections, store only initial portions of a plurality of media items other than the particular media item that correspond to the skip selections.”

The inventors are Andrew Bert Hodge, David John Tupman and Guy Bar-Nahum. FIG. 2 is a flow diagram of a cache loading process according to one embodiment of the invention.
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