An Apple patent (number 8234572) for remote access to advanced playlist features of a media player have appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Per the patent, a media player can have advanced-playlist creation capabilities such as the ability to automatically generate a playlist around a “seed” song selected by a user.

In some embodiments, the accessory can determine whether the media player can use a particular song as a seed song for an advanced playlist and can so inform the user. The user can then operate the accessory’s user interface to create an advanced playlist based on a particular song, rather than having to interact directly with the media player.

Here’s Apple’s summary of the invention: “Certain embodiments of the present invention relate to increasing a user’s ability to control a media player using an accessory device. For example, the media player can have advanced-playlist creation capabilities such as the ability to automatically generate a playlist around a “seed” song selected by a user. In some embodiments, the accessory can determine whether the media player can use a particular song as a seed song for an advanced playlist and can so inform the user. The user can then operate the accessory’s user interface to create an advanced playlist based on a particular song, rather than having to interact directly with the media player.

In one embodiment, an accessory can acquire a list of current tracks that are queued to be played from a portable media device. In addition, the accessory can also request information from the portable media device to determine whether a particular track (which might or might not be a currently queued track) has the capability of being used to create an advanced playlist. The accessory can present this information to the user and prompt the user to make a selection.

“The accessory can notify the portable media device to create an advanced playlist based on user input. In addition, the accessory can have the capability to instruct the portable media device to save and/or refresh the newly created advanced playlist or other advanced playlists.

“In another embodiment, a portable media device can provide an accessory with advanced playlist capability information (e.g., for tracks queued to be played) and wait for the accessory to communicate a user selection. If the portable media device receives an instruction from the accessory to create an advanced playlist based on specified track (e.g., a track selected by a user operating the accessory), the portable media device can attempt to create an advanced playlist for the selected track. The portable media device can communicate successful creation of the advanced playlist to the accessory (or it can communicate an error if for some reason the advanced playlist cannot be created).”

Shailesh Rathi and Lawrence G. Bolton are the inventors.

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