âPodmapsâ Patent Reveals Interest in Mapping

A filing made by Apple in January 2007 shows that the company may have interest in merging visual maps and spoken directions.

The mix of a visual map and spoken directions would be assembled together to create a “Podmap”, which could then be transferred to an iPod or iPhone.

“In this regard, the application server can reply to the client program to notify the client that the requested podmap is now available from the podmap RSS server. The client program can then interact with the podmap RSS server to retrieve the requested podmap,” Apple said.

“In any event, once the requested podmap is resident at the client or the portable media device, the podmap is able to be played on such devices. Due to their support of media playback, the client and the portable media device can also be referred to as media playback devices. When being played, the podmap presents to the user of the device the voice directions and the corresponding images so that the user is able to successfully navigate from the start location to the destination location. It is particularly useful to play on the portable media device because it can be easily carried or transferred by the user.”