Apple Inc.

Lionel Gentil

Kazuhisa Yanagihara

Gregory Bjorn Vaughan

Gregory Robert Burns

Darrin Jewell

Jason R Thorpe

Jordan L Redner

The disclosed embodiments provide a system that delivers content to an electronic device, The system includes a content provider that obtains a public address of the electronic device from a first request for the content from the electronic device, Next, the content provider uses the public address to identify a local caching server on a local area network (LAN) of the electronic device. Finally, the content provider provides a local address of the local caching server to the electronic device, wherein the local address is used by the electronic device to obtain the content from the local caching server and the LAN without accessing a content delivery network (CDN) outside the LAN.

Delivering content to electronic devices using local caching servers

The disclosed embodiments provide a system that delivers content to an electronic device. The system includes a content provider that obtains a public address of the electronic device from a first request for the content from the electronic device. Next, the content provider uses the public address to identify a local caching server on a local area network (LAN) of the electronic device. Finally, the content provider provides a local address of the local caching server to the electronic device, wherein the local address is used by the electronic device to obtain the content from the local caching server and the LAN without accessing a content delivery network (CDN) outside the LAN.

The described embodiments electronically deliver content (e.g., digitally-encoded files) to an electronic device using groups of accounts. In the described embodiments, a content provider obtains a public address of the electronic device and at least one account identifier for the electronic device from a request for the content received from the electronic device. Next, the content provider uses the public address to identify a local caching server (LCS) on a local area network (LAN) to which the electronic device is connected and uses the account identifier to determine that an account associated with the LCS is associated with a group of accounts with which an account for the electronic device is also associated. The content provider then provides a local address of the LCS to the electronic device, which uses the local address to obtain the content from the LCS via the LAN without accessing a content delivery network outside the LAN.

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Dublin, CA, United States of America

Lionel Gentil