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Apple files for patent for a lyric search service for Apple Music

Apple has filed for a patent (number 20290340193) for a “lyric search service” that shows the company wants to improve the ability of Apple Music to find a song based on its lyrics. 

In the new patent filing, Apple says can’t usually search for a song based on the lyrics of the song. The best that a user can typically do is perform a text-based search on the Internet and hope that the query matches a transcription of the lyrics in a song that is published on a website. 

Once the user has the information about the song, they can then perform another search to locate an audio file of the song within a data repository maintained by a music sharing service. Apple thinks it can do better.

Here’s Apple’s summary of the invention: “This application relates to a client-server architecture that enables search queries to be applied to transcription information for multimedia files. A server device implements a service configured to query a search platform to retrieve results associated with a plurality of multimedia files stored in a content database. The results are ordered according to a plurality of heuristic values calculated based on a text relevance analysis. 

“The service is configured to modify the heuristic values to adjust an order of the results, and generate a response to a search request that includes a representation of at least a portion of the transcription information of the multimedia files referenced by the results. The heuristic values are modified based on at least one of a popularity score for a corresponding multimedia file, a weight associated with a particular field, or a relevance score based on feedback signals.

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.

Dennis Sellers
the authorDennis Sellers
Dennis Sellers is the editor/publisher of Apple World Today. He’s been an “Apple journalist” since 1995 (starting with the first big Apple news site, MacCentral). He loves to read, run, play sports, and watch movies.