Audio Navigation for iPod in the Works?

The iPod became such a big hit not only because of its cutesy designs but also because of its easy to navigate music libraries that enables you to locate your fave tunes quickly. If only it has a bigger screen when changing playlists then you don’t have to wear your flimsy eyeglasses or shift your eyes from the road while driving. Sensing this dilemma, the Apple people have thought of a possible solution.

Recently, a patent application filed by Apple talked about an audio navigation interface, which is described as a system for automatic generation of audio navigation tags for your iPod. These tags are generated from the metadata of your music or video files which is the text information like the name of the song, the artist, song, or movie duration that comes with it when you purchase it from iTunes. The text infos are then converted using a text-to-speech software into audio navigation tags.

The converting would have to be done in a PC or a Mac since your iPod is incapable of that much computing. Audio navigation tags then are attached to the songs or videos themselves and transferred to your iPod.

For example, an iPod user wants to play John Lennon’s “Love”. He navigates to the song using his preferred path: “Menu”->”Music”->”Pop”->”John Lennon”->”Love”->”Play”. However instead of having to look at the screen, he hears audio prompts advising him on the next navigation steps. Convenient, isn’t it? But like most Apple patents, whether we see this kind of feature in the iPod in the not so distant future, is a mystery. But still, we will keep you posted as always.

The iPod became such a big hit not only because of its cutesy designs but also because of its easy to navigate music libraries that enables you to locate your fave tunes quickly. If only it has a bigger screen when changing playlists then you don’t have to wear your flimsy eyeglasses or shift your eyes from the road while driving. Sensing this dilemma, the Apple people have thought of a possible solution.

Recently, a patent application filed by Apple talked about an audio navigation interface, which is described as a system for automatic generation of audio navigation tags for your iPod. These tags are generated from the metadata of your music or video files which is the text information like the name of the song, the artist, song, or movie duration that comes with it when you purchase it from iTunes. The text infos are then converted using a text-to-speech software into audio navigation tags.

The converting would have to be done in a PC or a Mac since your iPod is incapable of that much computing. Audio navigation tags then are attached to the songs or videos themselves and transferred to your iPod.

For example, an iPod user wants to play John Lennon’s “Love”. He navigates to the song using his preferred path: “Menu”->”Music”->”Pop”->”John Lennon”->”Love”->”Play”. However instead of having to look at the screen, he hears audio prompts advising him on the next navigation steps. Convenient, isn’t it? But like most Apple patents, whether we see this kind of feature in the iPod in the not so distant future, is a mystery. But still, we will keep you posted as always.