Apple’s Contacts app, in conjunction with an iPhone, may one day be able to generate contacts based on user interaction. Apple has filed for a patent (number 20210250324) for such technology.
About the patent filing
The patent filing involves relates techniques for identifying a user’s interaction with another person and retrieving contact information for that person. In the patent filing, Apple says that, although contact information enables more efficient communications for a user of an electronic device, storing the information on a device requires some manual action on the part of the user of the device. As such, contact information for a particular individual on a user’s device may lag behind a real-life relationship between the user and the individual.
For example, if a user begins interacting with a new acquaintance, contact information for the new acquaintance will not be available on the user’s device until the user takes some action to either enter the information or retrieve the information electronically. Therefore, the user may wish to call, email, or otherwise interact with the new acquaintance but may not have their information available. Apple wants a combination of the iPhone and its Contacts app to accommodate quick sharing of information.
Summary of the patent filing
Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent filing: “Contact information may be automatically generated on a device based on an interaction by the user of the device with another individual. A record of the interaction may be obtained by the device and, if it is determined that the interaction satisfies an interaction rule, information from the record of the interaction may be utilized to obtain contact information for the individual.
“The contact information may be obtained by extracting the contact information directly from the record of the interaction or by extracting an identifier of the individual from the record of the interaction and querying a remote device for the contact information. The obtained contact information may then be stored on the user’s device.”
The graphic illustrates an interaction between two users of electronic devices in accordance with the patent filing.
