User interfaces for interacting with channels that provide content that plays in a media browsing application

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11683565-B2
Application number	US-201916584790-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 26, 2019
Priority date	Mar 24, 2019
Publication date	Jun 20, 2023
Grant date	Jun 20, 2023

Abstract

In some embodiments, an electronic device presents a plurality of representations of content items that are available on a respective channel in response to successfully subscribing the respective channel. In some embodiments, an electronic device plays content that is provided by a channel in a unified media browsing application. In some embodiments, an electronic device presents information about subscribing to a channel based on content consumption activity of the user on the electronic device in accordance with some embodiments of the disclosure.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
at an electronic device in communication with a display and one or more input devices:
displaying, on the display, a user interface of a media browsing application that includes content accessible from one or more content providers, wherein the user interface includes:
a first region that includes one or more representations of a first set of content items available for playback, including a first representation of a first content item selectable to initiate playback of the first content item, and a second representation of a second content item selectable to initiate playback of the second content item, wherein the first set of content items is selected based on a first shared characteristic, other than being content from a same channel, and
a second region, separate from the first region, that includes one or more representations of one or more channels available for subscription in the media browsing application, wherein the one or more representations of one or more channels available for subscription are displayed in a first portion of a row in the second region;

while displaying the user interface, receiving, via the one or more input devices, an input corresponding to a request to subscribe to a first channel of the one or more channels; and
in response to receiving the input:
initiating a process to subscribe to the first channel on the electronic device; and
in accordance with a determination that subscription to the first channel was successful:
displaying, via the display, an updated first region that includes the one or more representations of the first set of content items and a plurality of representations of a second set of content items available for playback from the first channel, including a first representation of a first respective content item from the first channel that is selectable to initiate a process to display the first respective content item on the display, and a second representation of a second respective content item from the first channel that is selectable to initiate a process to display the second respective content item on the display;

while displaying the updated first region that includes the one or more representations of the first set of content items and the plurality of representations of the second set of content items available for playback from the first channel and while not displaying the second region, receiving, via the one or more input devices, a second input corresponding to a request to scroll through the user interface; and
in response to receiving the second input, displaying, via the display, a representation of the first channel in a second portion, different from the first portion, of the row in the second region that is visually distinguished from others of the one or more representations of one or more channels available for subscription in the first portion of the row in the second region.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the one or more representations of the first set of content items available for playback in the first region and the one or more representations of the one or more channels in the second region are displayed as separate rows in the user interface.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein:
in accordance with a determination that the one or more channels includes a plurality of channels, the second region includes a full representation of a first respective channel in the plurality of channels and a portion of a representation of a second respective channel in the plurality of channels, wherein a current focus moves from the full representation of the first respective channel to the representation of the second respective channel in response to scrolling input received at the one or more input devices; and
in accordance with a determination that the one or more channels consists of a single channel, the second region includes a full representation of the single channel without including representations of other channels.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
the first channel is a channel whose content is viewable within the media browsing application or within a respective application, separate from the media browsing application, and
the process to subscribe to the first channel includes displaying a selectable option for linking to the media browsing application an existing subscription to the first channel, the existing subscription used to view the content from the first channel in the respective application.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
in accordance with a determination that a user of the electronic device has subscribed to less than a predetermined number of channels available for subscription in the media browsing application, the second region includes a plurality of representations of channels available for subscription in the media browsing application, and
in accordance with a determination that the user of the electronic device has subscribed to more than the predetermined number of channels available for subscription in the media browsing application, the second region includes a single representation of a channel available for subscription in the media browsing application without including other representations of channels available for subscription in the media browsing application.

6. The method of claim 5 , further comprising:
in response to receiving the input corresponding to the request to subscribe to the first channel:
in accordance with the determination that the subscription to the first channel was successful:
in accordance with the second region including the plurality of representations of channels available for subscription prior to receiving the input corresponding to the request to subscribe to the first channel, maintaining display, in the user interface, of the second region and one or more representations of channels available for subscription in the media browsing application.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
content of a first type and content of a second type, different from the first type, are accessible from the media browsing application,
in accordance with a determination that the user interface corresponds to content of the first type and not content of the second type, the one or more channels are first one or more channels on which content of the first type is available, and
in accordance with a determination that the user interface corresponds to content of the second type and not content of the first type, the one or more channels are second one or more channels on which content of the second type is available, the first one or more channels different than the second one or more channels.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
content of a first type and content of a second type, different from the first type, are accessible from the media browsing application,
in accordance with a determination that the user interface corresponds to content of the first type and not content of the second type, the plurality of representations of the content accessible on the electronic device from the first channel in the first region of the user interface include a plurality of representations of content of the first type without including representations of content of the second type, and
in accordance with a determination that the user interface corresponds to content of the second type and not content of the first type, the plurality of representations of the content accessible on the electronic device from the first channel in the first region of the user interface include a plurality of representations of content of the second type without including representations of content of the first type.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein:
in acc

Assignees

• Apple Inc

Inventors

• Cielak Matthew J
• Evashevski Michael
• Domm Drew R
• Vinna Fredric
• Grossman Alexander
• Moretti David
• Tan-Ang Jeff

Classifications

• G06F3/0485

  Scrolling or panning · CPC title

• H04N21/42216

  for quick navigation, e.g. through an EPG · CPC title

• H04N21/4821

  using a grid, e.g. sorted out by channel and broadcast time · CPC title

• H04N21/47202 Primary

  for requesting content on demand, e.g. video on demand · CPC title

• H04N21/4828

  for searching programme descriptors (retrieval of video data G06F16/739) · CPC title