A recent Apple patent details a tight integration between navigation and the Calendar and Address Book applications. Unwired View reports that the Apple dubbed “Integrated calendar and map applications in a mobile device,” may be tied into future iPhone firmware updates.
The workflow of the purposed integration seems rather straightforward. A user enters in their scheduling information, i.e. meetings or appointments etc… into their Calendar and if a person’s name correlates to one already located in your address book, the software will automatically complete your entry. Additionally, if there is an address or location associated with the entry, it will automatically interpret this data onto your map, while still allowing you to manually input information if necessary.
“Techniques, computer programs and apparatus relating to an integrated calendar and map feature are described. In one implementation, one or more calendar entries are identified in a calendar. A calendar entry includes an associated time and an associated location. A display of a map is provided including a graphical representation indicating a location associated with at least one calendar entry. The location associated with the calendar entry is derived from the calendar entry and included in a request to a map application for the map.”
When a significant amount of information is entered into the device, say you have several meetings spread throughout the day, the software can find and map the best routes using routing and traffic data that can even estimate the amount of time you will need to get to a specific location. In this respect, your iPhone can monitor your whereabouts and ping you when it feels you should leave for your next meeting in order to avoid being tardy. If for whatever reason you are running late, your iPhone has you covered as it will prompt you to send a pre-selected message with a single touch.
When and if this integration becomes fully implemented, I am sure it will be of great benefit if you are on the go and need to be punctual. To read the entire application, you can download the .pdf(2.3MB) here.
The official patent (#60/946,921) is credited directly to Scott Forstall, Imran A. Chaudhri, Gregory N. Christie and Robert E. Borchers.
3 Comments to “Apple Patent Aims to Integrate Calendar App and iPhone Mapping [U]”
This sound vaguely familiar to stuff I heard about the Palm Pre in how is “constantly connected to the web” and emails contacts and stuff when you’re running late. Sounds cool in theory, but probably sucks in practice.
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Hey Steve, similar, kind of. What you’re talking about seemed a little more intrusive then something like this. Palm was talking about the following scenario: You’re running late to a meeting and the phone will ping the other members of the meeting to let them know where you are via GPS. Wouldn’t work if you’re trying to pull a fast one on somebody.
This explains the phone talking to itself and its programmed information to ping the actual iPhone owner and helping them along the way. Say for example you have a few meetings lined up and you need to know the best route to get to all of them. Based on the integrated technology, this would allow the device to plan the best route automatically, or ping you when you’re running late, or are too far away to get to a location on time.
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Where the frick is iPhone copy and paste? Or standard MMS? HELLO ?!?!?!?!?
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