Apple wants to make it easier to capture and broadcast game screens on Macs, iPads, and iPhones. The company has filed for a patent (number 20220264184) for “recording and broadcasting application visual output.”
About the patent filing
Admittedly, the patent filing involves capturing screens of more than gameplay. However, that seems to be the main focus.
In the patent filing, Apple notes that broadcasting and replying of video games and other live output of applications is a growing form of entertainment. Numerous websites support ecosystems for video game players to post previously recorded outputs of video games or to broadcast the output of a video game live.
The popularity of these websites have only increased with the rise of e-sports leagues that hold competitions and tournaments for various applications.
However, Apple says that most techniques for sharing application visual output are “generally cumbersome and inefficient.” For example, some existing techniques use a complex and time-consuming user interface, which may include multiple key presses or keystrokes.
Apple also says that existing techniques require more time than necessary, wasting user time and device energy. This latter consideration is particularly important in battery-operated devices.
Apple’s patent filing is for techniques that provide electronic devices with faster, more efficient methods and interfaces for sharing application visual output. Such methods and interfaces optionally complement or replace other methods for sharing application visual output. Apple says that such methods and interfaces reduce the cognitive burden on a user and produce a more efficient human-machine interface.
Summary of the patent filing
Here’s Apple’s (somewhat technical) abstract of the patent filing: “The present disclosure generally relates to sharing application visual output. An example process includes: displaying a first affordance, where the first affordance corresponds to a broadcast application capable of broadcasting data corresponding to a visual output of an application; in response to detecting a first set of one or more user inputs, where the first set of one or more user inputs includes selection of the first affordance: in accordance with a determination that a first user is logged into an account associated with the broadcast application, sending data corresponding to the visual output of the application to the broadcast application for transmitting the data corresponding to the visual output over the communication interface to a remote server; and in accordance with a determination that the first user is not logged into the account associated with the broadcast application, displaying a login window of the broadcast application.”
