Apple Inc.

David Lawrence Neumann

Patrick L Coffman

Mike Wiese

Anne Jones

Payam Mirrashidi

Ellis Marshall Verosub

David Heller

Patrice Olivier Gautier

Jeffrey L Robbin

Christopher John Sanders

Timothy Benjamin Martin

Monika E Gromek

Megan M Frost

Bruno Posokhow

Eric J Gray

Chunlai Ma

David Scheck

Xinyu Zhao

Fei Gao

Hiro Mitsuji

James C Wilson

Alan Ward

Maria Dimitrova Ioveva

Robert H Kondrk

Michael Kuohao Chu

Alexandrea Anderson

Thomas K Burkholder

Colin Meldrum

Jonathan B Leffert

Debra Ameerally

Gregory T Quirk

Neale Patton

Christopher D Espinosa

Charles Clinton Lloyd

William M Bachmann

A customer interfacing with a credential manager may be enabled to request and obtain securely from the credential manager additional details related to a service transaction previously effected between the customer and a service provider using a customer transaction credential managed by the credential manager. To obtain such a detailed customer receipt for presentation to a customer, the credential manager may provide an authenticatable customer receipt request to the service provider that may include certain information indicative of an active session between the credential manager and an authenticated customer and/or certain information indicative of a trusted relationship between the credential manager and service provider. When a request is authenticated, the service provider may provide a detailed customer receipt to the credential manager in a format that may be presented to the customer but that may not be used by the credential manager to easily access details conveyed by the receipt.

Detailing secure service provider transactions

To perform a restricted action, such as access a restricted content item, a subordinate user account can transmit a permission request to an authorizing user account. The permission request can request authorization from the authorizing user account to perform the restricted action. The permission request can be transmitted to one or more client devices of the authorizing user account, and enable to the authorizing user account to remotely select to approve or deny the permission request, thereby either granting or denying the subordinate user account from performing the restricted action. In addition to approving or denying a permission request, an authorizing user account can also be enabled to ignore a permission request, thereby allowing the authorizing user account to respond to the permission request at a later time. Further, in some embodiments, an authorizing user account can select to deny all further permission requests to perform the restricted action.

Permission request

Improved techniques that facilitate the use of podcasts are disclosed. The improved techniques can pertain to publishing, hosting, accessing, subscribing, managing, organizing, searching, browsing, transferring, and/or playing podcasts. According to one aspect, tags are embedded into syndication feeds (e.g., RSS feeds) that may be made available for distribution by an online media store to facilitate the management of podcasts. In accordance with one embodiment, an explicit tag may be embedded at the feed and/or episode level to indicate that the feed and/or episode includes explicit content. In accordance with another embodiment, a duration tag may be embedded at the episode level to indicate an estimated duration associated with the episode. Upon downloading the episode, the duration may be replaced by the actual duration of the episode. In accordance with yet another embodiment, a new feed-URL tag may be embedded in a syndication feed to identify a new URL at which the feed is to be accessed.

Podcast organization and usage at a computing device

Providing digital content is disclosed. An indication that one or more arbitrarily selected downloadable items of third party prerecorded digital content are to be given as a gift is received. A request to deliver the one or more arbitrarily selected downloadable items of third party prerecorded digital content to a recipient of the gift is processed.

Providing a gift of downloadable digital content

Improved techniques that facilitate the use of podcasts are disclosed. The improved techniques can pertain to publishing, hosting, accessing, subscribing, managing, organizing, searching, browsing, transferring, and/or playing podcasts. According to yet one aspect, tags are embedded into syndication feeds that may be made available for distribution by an online media store to facilitate the organization, browsing and searching of podcasts. In accordance with one embodiment, one or more keyword tags may be embedded at the feed and/or episode levels of a podcast, thereby enabling the keywords to be associated with the feed and/or episode. In accordance with another embodiment, two or more category tags may be embedded at the feed and/or episode levels of a podcast, enabling the feed and/or episode to be categorized according to two or more categories.

Browsing and searching of podcasts

Improved techniques that facilitate the use of podcasts are disclosed. The improved techniques can pertain to publishing, hosting, accessing, subscribing, managing, organizing, searching, browsing, transferring, and/or playing podcasts. According to one aspect, tags are embedded into syndication feeds (e.g., RSS feeds) that may be made available for distribution by an online media store to facilitate the management of podcasts. Such tags can include a block tag that may be embedded into a syndication feed to indicate whether the feed is to be blocked from being included in the online media store. According to another aspect, management of podcasts may be facilitated by other mechanisms. In accordance with one embodiment, a user may challenge the ownership of a podcast to block or remove a podcast from the online media store. In accordance with another embodiment, images may be stored to allow efficient retrieval of the corresponding episode(s) of a podcast.

Management of podcasts

Improved techniques that enable users to download digital media assets are disclosed. According to one aspect, digital media assets that a user has acquired from a remote media repository can be authorized for download multiple times. This, for example, allows a user to subsequently re-downloaded digital media assets that the user previously acquired. In one embodiment, digital media assets that a user previously downloaded to a user client device from a remote media repository can be made available to the user for subsequent re-download. Advantageously, a remote media repository can, in effect, provide users with a remote backup for previously acquired digital media assets.

Re-download management of previously acquired digital media assets

Techniques to facilitate pre-ordering of digital media assets from an on-line media store are disclosed. A user of the on-line media store can view advance listings for digital media assets that have not yet been released. A user can also choose to pre-order a digital media asset that has not yet been released. Such a pre-order is recorded and monitored so that the desired digital media asset can be purchased and delivered to the user once the digital media asset become available. Since the monitoring is computerized and the delivery is electronic, once a digital media asset becomes available, delivery of any pre-order can occur nearly immediately.

On-line media store that supports pre-ordering of digital media assets

Techniques to facilitate pre-ordering of digital media assets from an on-line media store are disclosed. A user of the on-line media store can view advance listings for digital media assets that have not yet been released. A user can also choose to pre-order a digital media asset that has not yet been released. According to one aspect, a bundle (or group) of digital media assets can be pre-ordered. Such a pre-order is recorded and monitored so that the desired digital media asset can be purchased and delivered to the user once the digital media asset become available. Since the monitoring is computerized and the delivery is electronic, once a digital media asset becomes available, delivery of any pre-order can, if desired, occur nearly immediately.

Improved techniques and graphical user interfaces that assist users in searching through a group of media items are disclosed. According to one aspect, a search assistant (e.g., search bar) can be graphically presented to a user to assist the user in selecting search criteria. In one embodiment, the search assistant can be automatically presented when a search process is being considered by a user. In another embodiment, the search assistant can be context sensitive so as to adapt to different types of media items.

Techniques and graphical user interfaces for improved media item searching

Growing community of inventors

Portland, OR, United States of America

David Lawrence Neumann