ENTRY POINTS TO IMAGE-RELATED APPLICATIONS IN A MOBILE DEVICE

• US 20130318476A1
• Filed: 05/24/2012
• Published: 11/28/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 05/24/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Sauve, Aaron, Lemson, Kathryn C., Bilal, Ahmad, Bandyopadhyay, Shamik, Peters, Jannes Paul, Bennett, Eric
• Granted Patent: US 9,448,813 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/835
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2221/2149 Restricted operating environment
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04886 by partitioning the display area of the touch-screen or the surface of the digitising tablet into independently controllable areas, e.g. virtual keyboards or menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 23/62 Control of parameters via user interfaces

Abstract

A method and apparatus is provided for operating a mobile device having stored thereon a plurality of applications (“apps”) that are each configured to capture an image. The method includes receiving first user input data requesting invocation of a given one of the applications. The given application is launched by the user. After launching the given application a user interface is presented which serves as an entry point through which ail of the image capture applications stored on the mobile device are made available to the user.

Claims

1. A method of operating a mobile device having stored thereon a plurality of executable code segments that are each configured to capture and/or process an image, the method, comprising;

receiving first user input data requesting invocation of a given one of the executable code segments;

launching the given executable code segment; and

after launching the given executable code segment, presenting a user interface to a user operable to present for launching any of at least a subset of the plurality of executable code segments.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising presenting the user interface on a touch screen of the mobile device.

3. The method of claim 2 in which the user interface is a virtual button.

4. The method of claim 3 in which the virtual button is presented, by the given executable code segment.

5. The method of claim 1 further comprising receiving second user input data through the user interface requesting invocation of a second executable code segment from among the subset of executable code segments.

6. The method of claim 1 in which the plurality of executable code segments include at least one native image-related application and at least one third party image-related application.

7. The method of claim 1 in which the user interface is available for presentation to the user when the mobile device is in an above-lock state.

8. The method of claim 7 in which predetermined ones of the plurality of executable code segments are unavailable when the mobile device is in an above-lock state.

9. The method of claim 8 in which user interface indicates which of the plurality of executable code segments are unavailable when the mobile device is in an above-lock state.

10. The method of claim 1 in which one or more functions of the given executable code segment available in a below-lock state are unavailable to the user of the mobile device while the mobile device is in the above-lock state.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising:

receiving second input data requesting one of the unavailable functions; and

based on the second input data, presenting a second user interface to the user operable to change the state of the mobile device to the below-lock state.

12. The method of claim 10 in which the given executable code segment is a third party application.

13. The method of claim 1 in which the given executable code segment is a third party application.

14. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

in response to a user request, displaying a previously acquired image from rich media data stored in a rich media format, the previously acquired image being displayed, in a format that does not include ail of rich media data; and

presenting a user interface to the user for invoking one of the executable code segments that is capable of displaying the previously acquired, image in the rich media format.

15. An apparatus, comprising:

an image capture device;

a user interface;

one or more processors; and

one or more computer-readable storage media storing a plurality of image-related applications for capturing and/or processing an image, said computer readable storage media further storing computer-readable instructions that when executed by the processors, cause the apparatus to present, in response to a user request received by the user interface, an entry point through which all of the image capture applications stored on the computer readable storage media are available to the user.

16. The apparatus of claim 15 in which the user interface provides a link to an application marketplace from which additional applications can be acquired.

17. The apparatus of claim 15 in which the image capture applications stored on the computer readable storage media include at least one third party image-related application, said computer readable storage media further storing computer-readable instructions that when executed by the processors, cause the apparatus to establish the third party image-related application as a default application in response to a user request received by the user interface.

18. One or more computer-readable storage media storing computer-readable instructions that when executed by a computer cause the computer to perform a method of operating a mobile device having a plurality of authentication states, including an above-lock state and an below-lock state, the method comprising:

executing a first image-related application; and

displaying, on a touch-screen made available by the first image-related application, a listing of ail other image-related applications currently available for execution by the mobile device in at least the below-lock state, each of the other image-related applications being selectable for execution from the touch-screen.

19. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 18 in which at least one of the image-related applications is available in an above-lock state.

20. The one or more computer-readable storage media of claim 19 in which the at least one image-related, application is a third-party image-related application, a subset of functionality available from the third party image-related, application being unavailable in the above-lock state.