Apple has filed for a patent for an application menu for a video system. It hints at a revamped interface for its TV app, which allows you to continue to watch your favorite shows and movies, discover new content, and find new video apps, all from a single location.
The TV app is available in select countries and regions. You can use the TV app on your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with the latest version of iOS, or on your Apple TV with the latest version of tvOS. Note to Apple: let’s have a Mac version ASAP.
Many electronic devices provide user interfaces for viewing and selecting apps. Apple says there’s a need to provide an intuitive interface overlaid on visual content that obscures a minimal portion of the visual content. The company’s invention would “provide an intuitive interface that seems to anticipate user intention before input is complete by beginning an animation portion that is common to two or more user interface responses.”
Here’s Apple’s summary of the invention: “The invention is directed to an electronic device. The electronic device generates for presentation on a display a user interface including a plurality of groups of icons. A plurality of the icons have been grouped based at least in part on metadata of applications associated with the icons. The electronic device receives input selecting a respective icon. In response to receiving the input selecting a respective icon, the electronic device invokes an instance of an application associated with the respective icon.”
Of course, Apple files for — and is granted — lots of patents by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Many are for inventions that never see the light of day. However, you never can tell which ones will materialize in a real product.
