updated 05:30 pm EDT, Thu July 12, 2007
iWork, iLife Apple patents
A series of Apple patent applications surfaced today relating to its iLife and iWork suite of applications. Patent applications include "Movie Authoring," "Text flow in and around irregular containers," "Predictive styling," "Automatic sub-template selection based on content," "User interface for Web page creation/editing," and "Publishing and subscribing to digital image feeds." Apple's Movie Authoring patent details the movie authoring process as including selecting a theme, determining theme elements based on the theme selection, and adding the theme elements to a movie. Text flow in and Around Irregular Containers describes the process of placing text within oddly-shaped locations, while Predictive Styling tells of templates that include predefined layout and/or styling used in content authoring.
Automatic Sub-Template Selection Based on Content refers to a user friendly means of enabling unsophisticated users to include media objects such as photos or movies in Web pages created by those same users.
User Interface for Web page Creation/Editing
This particular patent aims to enable users to create and edit Web pages via the selection of a template. Users choose which template to incorporate into a Web page and are presented with an instance of a page that is at least in part based on the template selected, potentially allowing users to pick any one of innumerable layouts for a variety of different Web page styles.
Publishing and Subscribing to Digital Image Feeds
Another patent application explains techniques for publishing digital image feeds by automatically creating and uploading them to a server alongside the images described within them. Users can subscribe to feeds and receive automatic updates when those feeds are changed.