A new Apple patent application shows iPhones giving the user the opportunity to share Music, Photos, Videos, Voicemail etc by different communication modes- phone, email, text message, fax, chat etc

A communications device may transmit a media item chosen by a user over a communication path also being used to transmit an established communications operation. The user may select a media item of any known type, including for example a musical selection, a video, a voicemail, a podcast, an image, or any other suitable media item. The user may select any suitable contact method for the communications operation, including for example, telephone, voicemail, email, text message, chatting, fax, or any other suitable method.

Inventors: Douglas Joseph Weber

While all media are becoming increasingly portable for an individual, they are still not as easily shared with others located remotely from the individual. For example, an individual may call his friend to discuss music, but in order for the friend to listen to the music, the individual either may have to send the music to the friend using a device other than his telephone, or he may have to end the phone call and use the telephone to send the friend an email with the music attached.

Using some existing communications devices, users may initiate a communications operation with a recipient, but the user may not use the same communications device to share media with the recipient while the communications operation is in progress. For example, an individual may download music to a device and may listen to the music anywhere that he can take the device. Alternatively, an individual may create or store a video or other visual media on a device, and may playback the visual media for himself or for others in the presence of his device. The user, and other individuals in the physical presence of the user, may listen to or observe media on the communications device. But the user may not use his communications device to communicate with a remote recipient through a communications operation while transmitting media to the recipient over the same communications path.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Methods and systems are provided for combining media with a communications operation and transmitting both over the same communication path via the active audio output of a communications device.

The present invention permits a user to initiate a communications operation with a recipient, or to receive a communications operation initiated by another individual, and to transmit a selected media item over the same communication path used for the communications operation without terminating the communications operation. This combined transmission can occur regardless of the type of media selected by the user to be added to the communications operation. The communications device may be any device suitable for transmitting a communication (e.g., voice or data) as part of a communications operation. The communications operation may comprise audio communications (e.g., telephone or video conversations), data communications (e.g., e-mail, instant messaging, text messaging), video communications (e.g., video conferencing) or any combination thereof. The communication may be sent via any suitable means for transmitting voice or data (e.g., via a wired telephone line or via cable line, or via a wireless network). The type of media transmitted may include any known media, such as music, videos, voicemail, podcasts, images, or any other suitable media example.

The communications device may combine a media item with a communications operation in any suitable manner. In one embodiment, the communications device may establish a communications operation and may send a media item selected by the user to the active audio output so as to transmit to the recipient both the communications operation and the media item over the same communication path. For example, the user may initiate a telephone call with his friend in order to ask the friend if she is familiar with a particular song. Once the phone call has been established between the user and his friend, the user may select the song of interest from his communications device, and he may send the song to his friend over the same communication path used by the communications device to establish the communications operation, so that the two may continue their phone conversation while the song plays simultaneously. In another embodiment, the communications device may receive a communications operation in the form of a request for a video conference, and once the conference is established, the user may select a video (e.g., a YouTube.TM. selection) to be sent back to the conference initiator by the communications device over the same communication path.

[0006]As a further embodiment, the user may play a media item (e.g., a song) on his communications device, and the user may remember to call his friend while the song is playing. The user may pause the media item and may instruct the communications device to initiate a communications operation with his friend. If the friend responds and the friend’s communication device receives the communications operation, thereby establishing a communications path, the user may re-start the media item and may instruct the communications device to combine the media item with the communications operation in order to share the media item with his friend.