Method and system for volume control
AssigneeApple Inc.
InventorsRoss B. Peard, Pratik Shah
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method performed by a first electronic device, the method includes, while engaged in a call with a second electronic device, initiating a joint media playback session in which the first and second electronic devices independently stream media content for synchronous playback; driving a speaker with a mix of a downlink signal of the call and an audio signal of the media content at an overall volume level; receiving a user-adjustment at a single volume control for the first electronic device to reduce the overall volume level; in response to the user adjustment, applying a first gain adjustment to the downlink signal and a second gain adjustment to the audio signal; and driving the speaker with a mix of the downlink signal and the audio signal at the reduced volume level.
Claims20
A method performed by a first electronic device, the method comprising:
- while engaged in a call with a second electronic device, initiating a joint media playback session in which the first electronic device and the second electronic device independently stream media content for synchronous playback;
- driving a speaker with a mix of a downlink signal of the call and an audio signal of the media content at an overall volume level;
- receiving a user-adjustment at a single volume control for the first electronic device to reduce the overall volume level;
- and
- in response to the user-adjustment,
- determining a time period that extends from before the user-adjustment is received to at least when the user-adjustment is received in which a microphone signal of a microphone has included speech;
- responsive to the time period being greater than a threshold, determining a first gain and a second gain based on the user-adjustment;
- responsive to the time period being less than the threshold, determining a third gain and a fourth gain, wherein the first gain is less than the third gain and the fourth gain is less than the second gain;
- applying 1) the first gain or the third gain to the downlink signal and 2) the second gain or the fourth gain to the audio signal based on whether the time period is greater than or less than the threshold, respectively;
- and
- driving the speaker with a mix of the downlink signal and the audio signal at the reduced volume level.
A first electronic device, comprising:
- a sensor;
- a speaker;
- a processor;
- and
- non-transitory machine-readable medium having instructions which when executed by the processor causes the first electronic device to:
- while engaged in a call with a second electronic device, initiate a joint media playback session in which the first and second electronic devices independently stream media content for synchronous playback,
- drive the speaker with a mix of a downlink signal of the call and an audio signal of the media content at an overall volume level,
- receive sensor data from the sensor of the first electronic device,
- determine, based on the sensor data, that the downlink signal comprises a first priority and that the audio signal of the media content comprises a second priority that is different than the first priority,
- determine a first rate of change for a downlink volume level of the downlink signal based on the first priority and a second rate of change for a media content volume level of the audio signal based on the first and second priorities,
- receive at least two user-adjustments at a single volume control for the first electronic device to reduce the overall volume level at least twice, and
- in response to each user-adjustment, decrease the downlink volume level of the downlink signal at the first rate of change and the media content volume level of the audio signal at the second rate of change.
A non-transitory machine-readable medium having instructions which when executed by at least one processor of a first electronic device causes the first electronic device to:
- while the first electronic device is engaged in a call with a second electronic device, initiate a joint media playback session in which the first electronic device and the second electronic device independently stream media content for synchronous playback;
- drive a speaker with a mix of a downlink signal of the call and an audio signal of the media content at an overall volume level;
- receive a user-adjustment at a single volume control for the first electronic device to reduce the overall volume level;
- and
- in response to the user-adjustment,
- determine a time period that extends from before the user-adjustment is received to at least when the user-adjustment is received in which a microphone signal of a microphone has included speech;
- responsive to the time period being greater than a threshold, determine a first gain and a second gain based on the user-adjustment;
- responsive to the time period being less than the threshold, determine a third gain and a fourth gain, wherein the first gain is less than the third gain and the fourth gain is less than the second gain;
- apply 1) the first gain or the third gain to the downlink signal and 2) the second gain or the fourth gain to the audio signal based on whether the time period is greater than or less than the threshold, respectively;
- and
- drive the speaker with a mix of the downlink signal and the audio signal at the reduced volume level.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.