The present specification relates to mobile devices and in particular to a hand held mobile communication device with multiple display screens and user inputs.
Mobile devices are ubiquitous for business and personal use. Handheld mobile devices, sometimes referred to as mobile stations, are essentially portable computers having wireless capability, and come in various forms. These include Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), cellular phones and smart phones. Reduced size is an advantage to portability, but presents challenges to inputting and display of information. Some known solutions to these challenges include the incorporation of combined text-entry keyboard and telephone keypads on mobile devices such as cellular telephones, wireless personal digital assistants (PDAs), two-way messaging devices and others.
It is also known in the art to provide a primary keypad for a mobile communication device and a movable flip cover that contains a secondary keypad, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,226,501 (Weadon et al).
Further, CA 2,512,217 (Fyke et al) discloses a telephone keypad arranged on one side of a mobile communication device for providing an input signal corresponding to at least one telephone character, a keyboard arranged on the opposite side of the device for providing an input signal corresponding to at least one text character, where the telephone keypad is operable when the input device is in the first position, and the keyboard is operable when the input device is in the second position.
Moreover, it is also known in the art to provide mobile communication devices with touch-sensitive input screens, such as disclosed in US Patent Publication No. 2006/0066581 (Lyon et al).
Ergonomic comfort and facilitating fast and accurate text entry for e-mail, messaging, notes and other applications continue to pose challenges to the design of effective interfaces for such mobile devices.
Exemplary embodiments will be better understood with reference to the following Figures in which like numerals denote like parts and in which:
According to an aspect of this specification, there is set forth: a hand held mobile device capable of executing a software application, comprising: a top body portion; a bottom body portion; a hinge portion connecting said top and bottom body portions and permitting movement of said top and bottom body portions between closed and open positions; a first screen on said top body portion and accessible in said open position; and a second screen slidable on said bottom body portion to reveal a keyboard when said top and bottom body portions are in said open position and said second screen is in an extended position.
Referring briefly to
The mobile device 100 may send and receive communication signals over the wireless network after required network registration or activation procedures have been completed. Network access is associated with a subscriber or user of the mobile device via a SIM/RUIM card (i.e. Subscriber Identity Module or a Removable User Identity Module) within the communication subsystem 158. The SIM card (not shown) or RUIM is one type of a conventional “smart card” that can be used to identify a subscriber of the mobile device and to personalize the mobile device, among other things.
In a data communication mode, a received signal such as an email message or Web page is processed by the communications subsystem 158 and input to the microprocessor 134 for further processing and output to the displays 152, 152A, 152B, etc. A user of the mobile communication device 100 can also compose data items within a software application such as a messaging application, using the keypad 144 and/or touch screen 148, 148A, 148B, etc., in conjunction with display 152, 152A, 152B, etc. Such composed items can then be transmitted over the communications network through the communications subsystem 158 and antenna 160.
For voice communications, the overall operation of the mobile device 100 is substantially similar, except that the received signals are output to the speaker 154, and signals for transmission are generated by the microphone 150. Alternative voice or audio I/O subsystems, such as a voice message recording subsystem, can also be implemented on the mobile device. Although voice or audio signal output is accomplished primarily through the speaker 154, the display 152, 152A, etc. can also be used to provide additional information such as the identity of a calling party, duration of a voice call, or other voice call related information.
As indicated above, the flash memory 138 stores a plurality of applications 142 executable by the microprocessor 134, such as a message application for allowing a user to send and receive electronic messages (email), an attachment content handling application, which operates in conjunction with the message application to provide the user with attachment content handling options for messages that have an associated attachment. The attachment may be a document converted to plain text, an audio file compressed to WAV or an image file, for example. Once the user selects an attachment document for viewing according to a preferred attachment content handling option, the attachment content handling application generates a request for an attachment server to download the transcoded/compressed attachment, which can thereafter be viewed/played using an attachment viewer application.
In the embodiment of
From the foregoing, it will be apparent that the mobile device 100 performs a wide variety of complex functions and that it is a challenge to provide an interface that is sufficiently compact to match the form factor of the handheld device while providing the necessary level of functionality.
When the top body portion 102 of mobile device 100 is opened from a closed position (
In
In the fully open position (
Both the top body portion 202 and the bottom body portion 203 are attached to the hinge portion 205 using an independent hinge joint (i.e. a double hinge), as discussed above and as shown in
The function of screens 210 and 220, when device 100 is in the open position (
Thus, when an email application or a word processing application is running, the text being typed on keyboard 144 can be displayed on screen 220 with mis-typed words being highlighted, and screen 210 can operate as a touch screen for listing correct word options (i.e. displayed by a spell check option) for touch selection so as to replace the highlighted word on screen 220. Similarly, screen 210 can operate as a touch screen for listing word options (i.e. displayed by a text disambiguation option) for touch selection so as to replace partially completed words on screen 220.
When an email application or a web browser application are in use, screen 220 can operate as a main display while screen 210 is used to display document or image attachments.
When a mapping or GPS application is running on the device 100, screens 210 and 220 may by configured to display different zoom levels of an area being rendered.
When a phone application is in use screen 210 may operate as a touch screen telephone dial pad while screen 220 shows the number being dialed.
As a further alternative, screen 220 may operate as a secondary display for an additional software application 142 (e.g. calculator, address book, map, etc.), while screen 210 operates as the primary display for a foreground application (e.g. email, calendar, etc.).
A person of skill in the art can appreciate that a variety of sensors, such as induction, opto-mechanical, or electro-mechanical contacts, may be used to determine when the top and bottom portions 202 and 203 are in the closed (
In the closed position of
Preferably, the screens 210, 220, 230, and keyboard 144 of the mobile device 100 can be optimally configured by changing the relative disposition of top and bottom body portions 202 and 203 (i.e. closed, open, keyboard extended/retracted) to meet different application needs and to facilitate effective data entry.
Specific embodiments have been shown and described herein. However, modifications and variations may occur to those skilled in the art. For example, as discussed above, although the exemplary embodiment has been described in terms of implementation on a portable handheld electronic device, the principles set forth herein may be applied to other devices such as portable entertainment devices. All such modifications and variations are believed to be within the sphere and scope of the present embodiment.