Apple Inc.

Berkat S Tung

Stephen Olivier Lemay

Joe S Abuan

Hyeonkuk Jeong

Yan Yang

Roberto Garcia, Jr

Daniel Ben Pollack

Pierre Jonathan De Filippis

Ryan R Salsbury

Xiaosong Zhou

Justin N Wood

Christopher M Garrido

Nirav Rajendra Patel

Joshua V Graessley

Dazhong Zhang

Keith Walter Rauenbuehler

Gokul P Thirumalai

Karthick Santhanam

Ming Jin

Roberto Garcia

Andrew H Vyrros

Nicholas Joseph Circosta

Patrick G Gates

Justin Edward Santamaria

Jeremy Matthew Werner

Hsi-Jung Wu

Elizabeth Caroline Cranfill

Ting Chen

James O Normile

Haitao Guo

Bruno M Sommer

William George Stewart

Douglas Scott Price

Eric A Allamanche

Jim Normile

Barry A Whitebook

Patrick Miauton

Ian J Baird

Jin Hyung Park

Thomas P Devanneaux

Eric L Chien

Thuy Park

Hsien-Po Shiang

Ryan W Baker

Sean P Devlin

Mark M Xue

David Daming Kuo

Meriko Borogove

Jose A Lozano Hinojosa

Gobind Johar

Vu H Chiem

Yu Xing

Robert Quattlebaum

Vladimir Goupenko

David J Steele

Andrew Yanowitz

Amol V Pattekar

Pierre De Filippis

Graeme J Devine

David A Eldred

Blerim Cici

Aleksei Naiden

Jonathan J Bennett

David D Kuo

Leanid Vouk

A device implementing the subject technology may include at least one processor configured to receive downlink condition reports from device, each downlink condition report indicating a downlink channel condition of a respective device. The at least one processor is further configured to determine an uplink channel condition for each of the devices. The at least one processor is further configured to determine, for each respective device and based at least in part on the downlink condition reports and the uplink channel conditions, quality tiers, each of the quality tiers indicating a quality of at least one of an audio stream or a video stream. The at least one processor is further configured to provide for transmission, to each respective device, the quality tiers determined for the respective device.

Multi-device communication management

Techniques are disclosed relating to multiway communications. In some embodiments, a first electronic device initiates a multiway call between a plurality of electronic devices and exchanges a first secret with a first set of electronic devices participating during a first portion of the multiway call, the first secret being used to encrypt traffic between the first set of electronic devices. The first electronic device receives an indication that first set of participating electronic devices has changed and, in response to the indication, exchanges a second secret with a second set of electronic devices participating during a second portion of the multiway call, the second secret being used to encrypt traffic between the second set of participating electronic devices. In some embodiments, the indication identifies a second electronic device as leaving the multiway call, and the second secret is not exchanged with the second electronic device.

Secure multiway calling

A device implementing the subject technology may include at least one processor configured to transmit an allocation request requesting allocation of a group communication session with a plurality of devices and receive an allocation response in response to the allocation request, the allocation response including credential information for the device to use to join the group communication session. The at least one processor may be further configured to transmit an allocation bind request with the credential information to join the group communication session using the credential information and receive an allocation bind success response in response to the allocation bind request, the allocation bind success response indicating that the device has joined the group communication session. The at least one processor may be further configured to provide a join notification to the plurality of devices via an intermediary device to notify that the device has joined the group communication session.

A group communications platform facilitates that sharing of an application environment with other users. The platform may receive a request to initiate a group session for a local user and a remote user. An out-of-process network connection with a system communication channel between a local computing device associated with the local user and a remote computing device associated with the remote user may be established for the group session. A system call may be received from a local instance of a first application on the local computing device to transfer local data to a remote instance of the first application on the remote computing device via the out-of-process network connection. The local data may be transferred to the remote instance of the first application on the remote computing device via the out-of-process network connection and the system communication channel. The local data may include state data of the local instance of the first application for updating a state of the remote instance of the first application.

Group communications platform

Establishing a communication channel via a relay server with reduced setup time. Upon request by an initiating communication device a relay allocation server may allocate a single relay server for use in a communication session between the initiating communication device and one or more recipient communication devices. The relay server may be selected to perform favorably for the initiating communication device. Messaging for establishment of the communication session may be performed using persistent messaging connections, to avoid connection establishment cost. Messaging may also be performed using address tokens to avoid the cost of discovering global IP addresses. Following establishment of the communication session, the relay server may discover the IP address of one or more recipient communication devices, and may initiate reallocation of those devices to another relay server.

Relayed communication channel establishment

A quick relay communication protocol is used by an initiating communication device (such as a wearable electronic device, e.g., a smart watch) and/or a recipient communication device (such as a companion electronic device to the wearable electronic device, e.g., a smart phone, a tablet computer or a laptop computer) to selectively communicate messages via different communication channels. Based on available connections and a communication constraint associated with a message, a processor executing a program module in an application layer in the initiating communication device provides transmission instructions to an interface circuit in the initiating communication device, which transmits a message to the recipient communication device based on the transmission instructions. When there are currently no available connections and the message is eligible to be communicated through a cloud-based relay server, the processor establishes a cloud-based connection with the recipient communication device via the relay server.

Quick relay traffic management for cloud messaging

A device implementing the subject technology may include at least one processor configured to receive an indication of a task being performed at an other device. The at least one processor is further configured to perform, in response to receipt of the indication, one or more preliminary operations in anticipation of receiving a handoff of the task. The at least one processor is further configured to receive, after performing the one or more preliminary operations, a notification that the task is being handed off. The at least one processor is further configured to receive the handoff of the task from the other device. The at least one processor is further configured to continue to perform the task based at least in part on the one or more preliminary operations that were performed prior to receiving the notification that the task is being handed off.

A device implementing the subject technology may include at least one processor configured to receive a plurality of buffer reports from a plurality of other devices, each of the plurality of buffer reports indicating a current target buffer level for a respective one of the plurality of other devices. The at least one processor may be further configured to determine a group target buffer level based at least in part on the current target buffer levels of the plurality of other devices and a current target buffer level of the at least one buffer. The at least one processor may be further configured to transmit the group target buffer level to the plurality of other devices. The at least one processor may be further configured to manage an occupancy of the at least one buffer based at least in part on the group target buffer level.

Methods for establishing a direct peer-to-peer ('P2P') connection between two computers are disclosed. In particular, the methods are designed to work in cases where one or both of the computers are connected to a private network, such private networks being interconnected via a public network, such as the Internet. The connections between the private network and the public network are facilitated by network address translation ('NAT').

NAT traversal for media conferencing

Some embodiments relate to a device that transmits/receives encrypted communications with another device. A first device, such as a smart phone or smart watch, may generate a message associated with a certain data class, which may determine the security procedure used in the communication of the message. The first device may establish an encryption session for the purpose of communicating the message to a second device. Prior to sending the message, the first device may wait until encryption credentials are accessible according to certain conditions, which may be determined at least in part by the data class of the message. Similarly, after receiving the message, the second device may not be able to decrypt the message until encryption credentials are accessible according to certain conditions, which may be determined at least in part by the message data class.

Communicating messages with intermittently available encryption credentials

When direct communication between devices, such as via Bluetooth, is unavailable, a communication protocol is used by an initiating communication device and/or a recipient communication device to establish a communication session via a cloud-based relay server. This communication protocol efficiently allocates (or binds) the initiating communication device, the recipient communication device, and the relay server together for the communication session. The communication protocol may include handshaking messages that specify a transport type and channel used for connections in the communication session, as well as an address of the relay server. After the communication session is confirmed, the communication protocol allows the initiating communication device and the recipient communication device to share messages even when physically separated from each other.

Quick relay session management protocol

At least certain embodiments of the present disclosure include a framework for turning one or more multifunctional devices coupled to a personal area network (PAN) into virtual accessories of another multifunctional device coupled to the PAN. In one embodiment, connection between a multifunctional device and a PAN is established, where the PAN is further coupled to a set of multifunctional devices. One or more distributed functionalities associated with a multi-device capable application are assigned to each multifunctional device based on relationship between the multifunctional devices. At least part of the multi-device capable application is shared between the multifunctional devices. Using the multifunctional device, the one or more distributed functionalities are performed in collaboration with the other multifunctional devices.

Multifunctional devices as virtual accessories

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Berkat S Tung