Management of Local and Remote Media Items

• US 20130047084A1
• Filed: 08/16/2012
• Published: 02/21/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 08/18/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Inventors: Sanders, Christopher John, Martin, Timothy B., Chaudhri, Imran, Newman, Lucas C., Alsina, Thomas M., Robbin, Jeffrey L., Gautier, Patrice O., Kelly, Sean Boland, Wadycki, Andrew M.
• Granted Patent: US 10,706,096 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/716
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/4387 by the use of playlists

Abstract

A method at a client device includes displaying media library information corresponding to a set of media items. The media items include one or more local media items, the one or more local media items including media items stored at the client device, and one or more remote media items, the one or more remote media items including media items stored at a remote system and not at the client device. The method also includes displaying, concurrently with displaying the media library information, affordances identifying the remote media items; detecting user interaction with an affordance identifying a respective remote media item; and in response to detecting the user interaction, initiating a process for downloading a copy of the respective remote media item to the client device for storage at the client device.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

at a client device with a display;

displaying media library information corresponding to a set of media items, the media items comprising;

one or more local media items, the one or more local media items comprising media items stored at the client device, and

one or more remote media items, the one or more remote media items comprising media items stored at a remote system and not at the client device;

displaying, concurrently with displaying the media library information, affordances identifying the remote media items;

detecting a user command to activate playback of a respective remote media item;

in response to detecting the user command, initiating a process for playing the respective remote media item, including;

downloading a copy of the respective remote media item from the remote system to a cache at the client device, and

playing the copy of the respective remote media item in the cache; and

maintaining the affordance with respect to the respective remote media item.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein playing the copy comprises beginning play of the copy of the respective remote media item in the cache prior to the copy being completely downloaded.

3. A method comprising:

at a client device with a display;

displaying media library information corresponding to a set of media items, the media items comprising;

one or more local media items, the one or more local media items comprising media items stored at the client device, and

one or more remote media items, the one or more remote media items comprising media items stored at a remote system and not at the client device;

displaying, concurrently with displaying the media library information, affordances identifying the remote media items;

detecting user interaction with an affordance identifying a respective remote media item; and

in response to detecting the user interaction, initiating a process for downloading a copy of the respective remote media item to the client device for storage at the client device.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

responding to a predefined user command with respect to a playlist that includes one or more local media items and one or more remote media items, by playing the media items in the playlist in a sequence determined by the playlist.

5. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

determining whether the client device has a connection to the remote system;

responding to a predefined user command with respect to a playlist that includes one or more local media items and one or more remote media items, when a connection to the remote system is present, by playing the media items in the playlist in a sequence determined by the playlist; and

responding to a predefined user command with respect to the playlist, when a connection to the remote system is absent, by playing only the local media items in the playlist in the sequence determined by the playlist.

6. The method of claim 3, wherein downloading a copy of the respective remote media item includes downloading the copy for storage at the client device.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein downloading a copy of the respective remote media item includes downloading the copy into a cache.

8. The method of claim 3,

wherein displaying the media library information includes displaying a list identifying the local media items and the remote media items;

and

wherein displaying the affordances includes displaying respective icons identifying the remote media items in the list.

9. The method of claim 8,

wherein the respective icons identifying the remote media items are interactive;

and

wherein detecting interaction with the affordance corresponding to the respective remote media item includes detecting interaction with the respective icon corresponding to the respective remote media item.

10. The method of claim 8,

wherein an order of the media items in the list is irrespective of whether a respective media item is a local media item or a remote media item.

11. The method of claim 8,

wherein the list identifying the media items is ordered by one or more characteristics selected from the set consisting of title, artist or author, album or collection, rating, time, and genre, and wherein the order of the media items in the list is irrespective of which listed media items are local media items and which listed media items are remote media items.

12. The method of claim 3,

wherein displaying the media library information includes displaying a collections gallery comprising one or more collections, wherein each of a plurality of the media items is associated with a respective collection;

and

wherein displaying the affordances includes displaying respective icons to identify respective collections that are respectively associated with one or more remote media items.

13. The method of claim 12,

wherein displaying the affordances includes, for a respective collection having one or more remote media items, displaying a number indicating a count of remote media items in the respective collection.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

detecting interaction with an affordance corresponding to a collection having an icon identifying the collection as associated with one or more remote media items; and

in response to detecting the interaction, initiating a process for downloading respective copies of at least one of the remote media items associated with the collection to the client device for storage at the client device.

15. The method of claim 3, wherein one or more of the remote media items are copies of corresponding local media items that have been removed from the client device.

16. The method of claim 3, wherein one or more of the remote media items correspond to digital media purchases at a digital media store and have no corresponding local media item.

17. The method of claim 3, further comprising locally storing at the client device metadata for each media item in the set of media items, the locally stored metadata for a respective media item including storage location information indicating whether the respective media item is locally stored at the client device, and whether the respective media item is remotely stored at the remote system.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein the locally stored metadata for the respective media item includes a source indicia indicating whether the respective media item was purchased at a predefined digital media store.

19. The method of claim 17, further comprising updating a file path in the metadata for a respective media item when the respective media item is downloaded to the client device.

20. The method of claim 17, further comprising, in response to a predefined trigger condition, initiating synchronization of the locally stored metadata with corresponding metadata stored at the remote system.

21. The method of claim 17, wherein, when the storage location information indicates that a respective media item is locally stored at the client device, the storage location information further indicates whether the respective media item is durably stored at the client device or is cached at the client device.

22. The method of claim 17, wherein the storage location information for a respective media item includes state information selected from the set consisting of:

locally stored, locally cached, remotely stored, and a plurality of transitional states.

23. The method of claim 22, wherein the plurality of transitional states comprises:

transitioning to local storage, transitioning to cache, purchase transaction in process, and being deleted from local storage.

24. The method of claim 3, wherein one or more of the remote media items include corresponding copies cached at the client device, wherein the cached copies are subject to eviction from a cache at the client device in accordance with a cache management policy.

25. The method of claim 3, further comprising, while displaying the media library information corresponding to the set of media items, suppressing display of remote media items that have been marked as hidden.

26. The method of claim 3, further comprising receiving a user command to delete a respective local media item from the client device and to mark the respective local media item as hidden.

27. The method of claim 3, wherein displaying the media library information corresponding to the set of media items is performed while the client device has an online connection to the remote system;

the method further comprising;

when the client device is offline, displaying the media library information corresponding to the local media items and suppressing display of media library information corresponding to the remote media items stored at the remote system and not at the client device.

28. The method of claim 3, wherein displaying the media library information corresponding to the set of media items is performed while the client device has an online connection to the remote system, and one or more of the remote media items stored at the remote system and not at the client device are members of a playlist of one or more media items;

the method further comprising;

when the client device is offline, displaying the media library information corresponding to the playlist, including displaying the media library information corresponding to the remote media items stored at the remote system and not at the client device with visual indicia identifying the remote media items in the playlist.

29. The method of claim 3, wherein displaying the media library information corresponding to the set of media items is performed while the client device has an online connection to the remote system;

the method further comprising;

when the client device is offline, displaying the media library information corresponding to the set of media items, including;

displaying, in accordance with a first predefined formatting, media library information for the one or more local media items stored at the client device; and

displaying, in accordance with a second predefined formatting that is visually distinct from the first predefined formatting, media library information for the one or more remote media items stored at the remote system and not at the client device.

30. The method of claim 3, wherein one or more of the local media items has a respective corresponding copy stored at the remote system.

31. The method of claim 3, further comprising:

determining whether a respective media item is stored at both the client device and the remote system; and

displaying an affordance identifying the respective media item if the respective media item is stored at the remote system and no corresponding copy is stored at the client device.

32. The method of claim 3, wherein displaying media library information further comprises suppressing display of respective media items in the set of media items that match predefined filter criteria.

33. The method of claim 3, wherein the copy of the respective remote media item downloaded to the client device for storage at the client device has one or more predefined quality metrics that are different from the predefined quality metrics of a corresponding previously deleted local media item.

34. The method of claim 3, further comprising, in response to a predefined user command, replacing a respective local media item with a higher quality media item downloaded from the remote system, the higher quality media item having content corresponding to content of the respective local media item.

35. A client device, comprising:

one or more processors;

memory; and

one or more programs, wherein the one or more programs are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors, the one or more programs including instructions for;

displaying media library information corresponding to a set of media items, the media items comprising;

one or more local media items, the one or more local media items comprising media items stored at the client device, and

one or more remote media items, the one or more remote media items comprising media items stored at a remote system and not at the client device;

displaying, concurrently with displaying the media library information, affordances identifying the remote media items;

detecting user interaction with an affordance identifying a respective remote media item; and

in response to detecting the user interaction, initiating a process for downloading a copy of the respective remote media item to the client device for storage at the client device.

36. A computer readable storage medium storing one or more programs, the one or more programs comprising instructions, which when executed by a computer having one or more processors and memory, cause the device to:

display media library information corresponding to a set of media items, the media items comprising;

one or more local media items, the one or more local media items comprising media items stored at the client device, and

one or more remote media items, the one or more remote media items comprising media items stored at a remote system and not at the client device;

display, concurrently with displaying the media library information, affordances identifying the remote media items;

detect user interaction with an affordance identifying a respective remote media item; and

in response to detecting the user interaction, initiate a process for downloading a copy of the respective remote media item to the client device for storage at the client device.