1. Technical Field
The present disclosure generally relates to a method of using an electronic calendar and a handheld mobile electronic device using the same.
2. Related Art
An handheld mobile electronic device such as a mobile phone or PDA is often equipped with an electronic calendar application or widget which may very well be an indispensable tool in the modern life. Generally, a user may plan events on certain dates of a month or a year using the calendar as well as activities within a single date. In other words, a user may customize one's own calendar by entering information to annotate a certain date or a certain time of the day. As the result of the recent development of an electronic calendar in a mobile phone, the electronic calendar has replaced the function of a traditional calendar and a traditional planner as a business person no longer has to carry one's planner around in a suitcase.
Also recent technological advancements have brought about social networks which not only bring people closer together but also enable people to stay connected to other people's lives. Consequently, a person not only has one's own calendar but may also be expected to keep track of other people's calendars when they are shared willingly by others. Currently, various social networks have implemented functions such as events planning in certain time of a day or a calendar function which records a person's birthday or various special events.
A conventional calendar application for mobile phone may synchronize with various social networks to obtain personal information such as people's profiles, photographs, or data uploaded to the social networks. However, calendar functions between various platforms such as web based social networks, messengers, or mobile phones are not yet fully synchronized. For instance, when a birthday reminder is triggered by a calendar application in accordance with the profile data obtained from the social networks, a user still has to additionally launch the social network application if he/she wants to post a birthday greeting on that friend's web page provided by the social network.
This present disclosure provides a method of a calendar application/widget interaction among users and with online services while showing a reminder triggered by the information obtained from the online services.
The present disclosure directs to a handheld mobile electronic device which implements functions of a calendar application/widget interaction among users and with online services while showing a reminder triggered by the information obtained from the online services
According to an exemplary embodiment, the method of the present disclosure performs the steps of first synchronizing the electronic calendar with an external data storage to generate a synchronized data, generating automatically an event according to the first synchronized data, displaying the event, inputting a user response based on the event, transmitting the user response to selected users, and synchronizing the user response with the external data storage.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the method of the present disclosure displays the first response on a social networking website without launching the social networking website.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the method of the present disclosure creates an invitational list for the first event and synchronizes the invitational list with the external data storage.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the method of the present disclosure transmits the user response to members on the invitation list.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the method of the present disclosure the user response is a text message, an email, a video, or a file attachment and is transmitted to each member of the invitation list.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the method of the present disclosure creates automatically an event on a social networking website with invited guests from the invitation list without launching the social networking website.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the method of the present disclosure sets a reminder message to be triggered before a predetermined time period of the first event; and triggers the reminder message before the predetermined time period of the first event.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the method of the present disclosure allows dragging and dropping of the electronic calendar on a home screen of the handheld mobile device and displays the electronic calendar as a widget on the home screen.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the method of the present disclosure sends a birthday greeting to a social networking website without launching the website.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the method of the present disclosure synchronizes data with the external data storage from a web based social networking website, from a messenger service, from an email server, or from a calendar server.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the mobile handheld electronic of the present disclosure at least contains a communication unit, a storage unit, an input unit, a display unit, and a processing unit connected to the communication unit, the storage unit, the input unit, the display unit.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the mobile handheld electronic of the present disclosure configures the communication unit for synchronizing the electronic calendar with an external data storage to generate a first synchronized data, the storage unit for storing the first synchronized data, the input unit for inputting a first response based on the first synchronized data, the processor for transmitting the first response through the communication unit and for synchronizing the first response with the external data storage through the communication unit.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the mobile handheld electronic of the present disclosure configures the communication unit for transmitting the first response to be displayed on a social networking website without launching the social networking website.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the mobile handheld electronic of the present disclosure configures the processor for synchronizing through the communication unit an invitational list created for the first event with the external data storage.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the mobile handheld electronic of the present disclosure configures the communication unit for transmitting the first response to members on the invitation list.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the mobile handheld electronic of the present disclosure configures transmits the first response which could be a phone call, a text message, an email, a video, or a file attachment.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the mobile handheld electronic of the present disclosure configures the communication unit for transmitting the first event and the invitational list to be generated as a social event with a invited guest list on a social networking website without launching the social networking website.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the mobile handheld electronic of the present disclosure configures the processor for setting a reminder message to be triggered before a predetermined time period of the first event, and triggering the reminder message before the predetermined time period of the first event.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the mobile handheld electronic of the present disclosure configures a display unit for displaying the electronic calendar as a widget on the home screen when the electronic calendar is dragged and dropped on the home screen of the handheld electronic mobile device.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the mobile handheld electronic of the present disclosure configures the processor to send through the communication unit a birthday greeting to be displayed on a social networking website without launching the website.
According to an exemplary embodiment, the mobile handheld electronic of the present disclosure configures the communication unit to synchronize data from a web based social networking website, from a messenger service, from an email server, or from a calendar server.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the disclosure and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification. The drawings illustrate embodiments of the disclosure and, together with the description, serve to explain the principles of the disclosure.
Reference will now be made in detail to the present embodiments of the invention, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. Wherever possible, the same reference numbers are used in the drawings and the description to refer to the same or like parts.
The present disclosure provides a method of a calendar application/widget interaction among users and with online services while showing a reminder triggered by the information obtained from the online services.
According to an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, when the calendar application for mobile phone synchronizes with various social networks such as MySpace or Facebook, personal information such as people's profiles, photographs, daily agenda, or events entered into the social networks may be obtained. When the calendar application receives a birthday reminder triggered by the calendar application in accordance with the profile data obtained from the social networks, the user may post a birthday greeting on a webpage of the social networks without having to additionally launch the social network applications.
Each time when a user logs into a social network, all time and dates related information from the social network, for instance, birthday dates, anniversaries, or any special dates of friends in the social network, or data of calendar events of the social network will be downloaded from the cloud storage into a storage of the mobile phone. The time, date, and information of each event which might be useful for the calendar application is downloaded and is then integrated into the database of the calendar application/widget so that a brief description about each time, date, and information related to each calendar event from the online service may be displayed on an agenda view of the calendar application or widget. However, the user may also view the time, date, and related information of each event obtained from the online service in the month view or day view.
Under the agenda list 102, it may shown a list of events. For each event, it may include a photograph 104 or a representative icon 106 for the event. Also an event may have the name of the event, the time and date of the event, and a description for the event. For instance, the agenda list 102 may show a weekly recurring event such as a weekly meeting 103. It may show a birthday event 105 including a person's photograph 104 downloaded from a social network or entered manually. It may include a downloaded event from a social network 107 represented by an icon 106. A user may touch on any one of these listed event to obtain a more detailed view of each event.
Besides the agenda view, a user may also switch among other views (not shown) by touching on menus on the bottom of the menu including the monthly view 108, weekly view, daily view 110, and the agenda view 109. The month view may show various events, including synchronized events, annotated on a calendar of the mobile phone. The daily view works like a daily planner and may list all the events of the times of a day. The agenda view 109 as previous mentioned, is a compiled list of all the events manually entered or downloaded and ascending sorted according to time.
For each event of the calendar application or widget, the reminder time of each event may be set by a user. The user may decide what predetermined time period before the time of the event would trigger the reminder. To set the reminder time, a user may tap an item on the agenda list 102 to see the details thereof Alternatively, when the reminder of the item is displayed to the user, the details thereof is showing on the reminder.
The reminder time may be set by a user from the event details view.
A person may also send a birthday greeting from the event details view 301 by touching Send Greeting 302 software button on the event details view. When the Send Greeting 302 button is touched, a dialog menu may be launched.
When a user is finished with the editing and the file attachment, POST 403 may be tapped to send the greeting message onto the friend's webpage provided by the online service. For example, if the birthday information is acquired from Facebook, the greeting content will be directly posted on the friend's Wall after the user tap on the “POST” button.
In another exemplary embodiment, after a user taps on the Send Greeting 302 software button as shown in
In step 603, after knowing that a friend's birthday has arrived from Facebook or is imminent from the reminder function of the mobile phone as the friend's birthday detail has been generated by the calendar function in step 603, a user may send a birthday greeting message using the dialog menu as shown in
The calendar application or widget integrates information from the online services and provides the instant interaction with the online service for the user while displaying a reminder related to the information from the online services. The interaction may be posting the user edited content on the webpage of the contact's event on the online services. It should be noted that the information obtained form the online service is not limited by the birthday of friends or the event date, and the online service comprises any social networking service.
The followings is an example of integrating an online calendar into the Calendar application/widget in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present disclosure, and providing a user interaction based on the online calendar information. To be specific, the online calendar service provides several kinds of online calendar covering distinct holidays based on different cultures for a user to select. After the user login the user account, he/she may select one of the online calendar and add their personal schedule and the memorial day into the online calendar to create a personal online calendar. Each time when a user logs into the account of an online calendar service on the mobile phone, the online calendar data will be downloaded from the cloud storage into the mobile phone, and integrated into the database of the Calendar application/widget. That is, the brief description of each downloaded online calendar data (e.g., friends' birthday, the holiday or the event date) may be displayed on the Agenda view (or the month view or the day view) of the Calendar application & Widget.
When the user taps on the “Edit Event” button, a dialog interface will be displayed for the user to create an event and invite friends to join the event.
The display unit 904 may be a touch screen equipped with sensors for receiving touch signals. The input unit 903 may receive and process various input signals from a user. For instance, the input unit may receive a touch input signal from the touch screen and determine a precise location of the touch signal. The control unit 905 coordinates various control signals within the electronic device. The communication unit 902 may include transceivers, filters, mixers, an analog to digital converter, a digital to analog converter, low noise amplifiers, gain stages, power amplifiers, GPS devices, and signal processing units. The communication unit 902 may synchronize through interne or communication protocols with the cloud storage from social networks, messengers, email servers, or calendar servers.
The non-transitory memory unit 906 contains program instructions including instructions for executing the calendar functions and contain user data including data stored by the calendar application or widget. The processing unit 901 may execute functions related to the calendar application or widget through the control unit 905, the communication unit 902, the input unit, the display unit 904, the control unit 905, and the memory unit 906.
In view of the aforementioned descriptions, the present disclosure provides a calendar application or widget for use on a handheld electronic mobile device which is able to synchronize with external data storages from the cloud storage to obtain data including birthdays, social events, holidays, anniversaries, and user defined events. Upon synchronizing the data, a user is able to send birthday greetings to be posted on a webpage of a social network without launching the social network website. The user is also able to synchronize events with a calendar server including social or holiday events, send invitations to selected contact list, edit the event, and synchronize the edited event with the calendar server.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and variations can be made to the structure of the disclosed embodiments without departing from the scope or spirit of the disclosure. In view of the foregoing, it is intended that the disclosure cover modifications and variations of this disclosure provided they fall within the scope of the following claims and their equivalents.
This application claims the priority benefit of U.S.A. provisional application Ser. No. 61/602,609, filed on Feb. 24, 2012. The entirety of the above-mentioned patent application is hereby incorporated by reference herein and made a part of specification.
Number | Date | Country | |
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61602609 | Feb 2012 | US |