CN101535940B - Portable electronic device for instant messaging - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention discloses a portable electronic device for instant messaging. One aspect of the invention relates to a Graphical User Interface (GUI) on a portable electronic device with a touch screen display. The GUI has a set of messages exchanged between the user of the device and another person. The set of messages is displayed in chronological order. In response to detecting a scroll gesture comprising a substantially vertical movement of user contact with the touch screen display, the display of the message is scrolled in accordance with a direction of the scroll gesture. The detection of the scroll gesture is substantially independent of a horizontal position of the user contact with the touch screen display.

Description

Portable Electronic Devices for Instant Messaging

technical field

The disclosed embodiments relate generally to portable electronic devices, and more particularly to portable devices for performing instant messaging.

Background technique

As portable electronic devices become more compact, and the number of functions performed by a given device increases, designing user interfaces that enable users to easily interact with multifunction devices has become a significant challenge. This challenge is especially important for handheld portable devices with much smaller screens than desktop or laptop computers. The situation is disadvantageous because the user interface is the avenue through which the user not only receives content but also responds to user actions or behaviors, including the user's attempts to access the features, tools, and functions of the device.

Some portable communication devices (e.g., mobile phones, sometimes referred to as cellular phones, etc.) resort to adding more push buttons, increasing the density of push buttons, overloading the functionality of the push buttons, or utilizing complex menus systems to enable users to access, store and manipulate data. These traditional user interfaces often result in complex key sequences and menu hierarchies that users must remember.

Many traditional user interfaces, such as those involving physical push buttons, are also inflexible. This is disadvantageous because it may prevent the user interface from being configured and/or adapted by applications running on the portable device or by the user. When combined with the time-consuming requirement of remembering multiple key sequences and menu hierarchies, and the difficulty in activating desired pressed buttons, this inflexibility is frustrating for most users.

Instant messaging (IM) services based on portable devices are becoming increasingly popular. But most IM services on portable electronic devices have immature user interfaces. Creating instant messages on such devices is cumbersome. Users often need to repeatedly press the phone keypad to select characters. Finding and viewing previous instant messages is also difficult. For example, it may be inconvenient or even impossible for a user to view a series of previous messages for a particular user while composing a new message for that user.

Accordingly, there is a need for a portable multifunction device with a more transparent and intuitive user interface for instant messaging that is easy to use, configure, and/or adapt.

Contents of the invention

With the disclosed portable multifunction device, the above-mentioned deficiencies and other problems associated with user interfaces for portable devices are mitigated or eliminated. In some embodiments, the device has a touch-sensitive display with a graphical user interface (GUI) (also referred to as a touchscreen or touchscreen display), one or more processors, memory, and a computer program stored on the memory for performing multiple functions. One or more modules, programs or sets of instructions. In some implementations, the user interacts with the GUI primarily through finger contacts and gestures on the touch screen display. Instructions for performing instant messaging operations may be included in a computer program product configured for execution by one or more processors.

One aspect of the invention relates to a computer-implemented method wherein a portable electronic device having a touch screen display performs the steps of: displaying in chronological order a set of messages exchanged between a user of the device and another person; a scroll gesture of substantially vertical movement of the touch screen display contact, wherein said detecting the scroll gesture is substantially independent of the horizontal position of the user's contact with the touch screen display; and responding by scrolling the display of the message in accordance with the direction of said scroll gesture The roll gesture.

Another aspect of the present invention relates to a computer-implemented method wherein a portable electronic device having a touch screen display performs the step of: displaying a list of sessions, each session comprising a session exchanged between the user of the device and a corresponding other person group messaging; detecting a scroll gesture comprising substantially vertical movement of the user in contact with the touch screen display; and responding to the scroll gesture by scrolling the conversation list according to the direction of the scroll gesture, wherein the scroll gesture is substantially consistent with the user and The horizontal position of the touch screen display is independent of the contact.

Another aspect of the invention relates to a portable electronic device. The portable electronic device includes a touch screen display, one or more processors, memory, and one or more programs. The one or more programs are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors. The one or more programs include: instructions for displaying in chronological order a set of messages exchanged between a user of the device and another person; instructions for detecting substantially vertical movement comprising contact by the user with the touch screen display instructions for a scrolling gesture, wherein the detecting a scrolling gesture is substantially independent of the horizontal position of the user's contact with the touch screen display; and instructions for responding to the scrolling gesture by scrolling the display of the message according to the direction of the scrolling gesture .

Another aspect of the invention relates to a portable electronic device. The portable electronic device includes a touch screen display, one or more processors, memory, and one or more programs. The one or more programs are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors. The one or more programs include: instructions for displaying a list of conversations, each conversation including a set of messages exchanged between a user of the device and a corresponding other person; instructions for a scroll gesture that moves substantially vertically; and instructions for responding to the scroll gesture by scrolling the session list according to the direction of the scroll gesture, wherein the scroll gesture is substantially in contact with the user and the touch screen display The horizontal position is irrelevant.

Another aspect of the invention relates to a computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium and computer program means embedded therein. The computer program mechanism includes instructions that, when executed by a portable electronic device having a touch screen display, cause the device to: display in chronological order a set of messages exchanged between a user of the device and another person Detecting a scroll gesture comprising substantially vertical movement of the user's contact with the touchscreen display, wherein the detected scroll gesture is substantially independent of the horizontal position of the contact of the user with the touchscreen display; and responding to the message by scrolling in accordance with the direction of the scroll gesture is displayed, in response to the scroll gesture.

Another aspect of the invention relates to a computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium and computer program means embedded therein. The computer program mechanism includes instructions that, when executed by a portable electronic device having a touch screen display, cause the device to: display a list of conversations, each conversation comprised between a user of the device and a corresponding other person detecting a scroll gesture comprising substantially vertical movement of the user in contact with the touch screen display; and responding to the scroll gesture by scrolling the conversation list according to the direction of the scroll gesture, wherein the scroll gesture substantially is independent of the horizontal position of the user's contact with the touchscreen display.

Another aspect of the invention relates to a graphical user interface (GUI) on a portable electronic device having a touch screen display. The GUI has a set of messages exchanged between the user of the device and another person. The group messages are displayed in chronological order. In response to detecting a scroll gesture comprising substantially vertical movement of user contact with the touchscreen display, scrolling the display of the message according to the direction of the scroll gesture, wherein the detected scroll gesture is substantially horizontal to the user's contact with the touchscreen display irrelevant.

Another aspect of the invention relates to a graphical user interface (GUI) on a portable electronic device having a touch screen display. The GUI has a list of conversations, each conversation comprising a set of messages exchanged between the user of the device and a corresponding other person. In response to detecting a scroll gesture comprising a substantially vertical movement of user contact with the touch screen display, the conversation list is scrolled according to the direction of the scroll gesture. The scrolling gesture is substantially independent of the horizontal position of the user's contact with the touch screen display.

Another aspect of the invention relates to a portable electronic device having a touch screen display, the device comprising: means for displaying in chronological order a set of messages exchanged between a user of the device and another person; An apparatus comprising a substantially vertically moving scroll gesture of user contact with the touch screen display, wherein the detected scroll gesture is substantially independent of the horizontal position of the user's contact with the touch screen display; and for scrolling in a direction according to the scroll gesture A means for displaying a message in response to the scroll gesture.

Another aspect of the invention relates to a portable electronic device having a touch screen display, the device comprising: means for displaying a list of sessions, each session comprising a session exchanged between the user of the device and a corresponding other person a group message; means for detecting a scroll gesture comprising substantially vertical movement of the user in contact with the touch screen display; and means for responding to the scroll gesture by scrolling a conversation list according to the direction of the scroll gesture, wherein the The scrolling gestures described above are substantially independent of the horizontal position of the user's contact with the touchscreen display.

Another aspect of the invention relates to a computer-implemented method wherein a portable electronic device having a touch screen display performs the step of displaying in chronological order a set of messages exchanged between a user of the device and another person. The messages sent by another person include a first message sent from a first address associated with the other person and a second message sent from a second address associated with the other person, the second The address is different from said first address.

Another aspect of the invention relates to a portable electronic device. The device includes a touch screen display, one or more processors, memory, and one or more programs. The one or more programs are stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the one or more processors. The one or more programs include instructions for displaying in chronological order a set of messages exchanged between a user of the device and another person. The messages sent by another person include a first message sent from a first address associated with the other person and a second message sent from a second address associated with the other person, the second The address is different from said first address.

Another aspect of the invention relates to a computer program product comprising a computer readable storage medium and computer program means embedded therein. The computer program mechanism includes instructions that, when executed by a portable electronic device having a touch screen display, cause the device to: display in chronological order a set of messages exchanged between a user of the device and another person . The messages sent by another person include a first message sent from a first address associated with the other person and a second message sent from a second address associated with the other person, the second The address is different from said first address.

Another aspect of the invention relates to a graphical user interface (GUI) on a portable electronic device having a touch screen display. The GUI has a chronological set of messages exchanged between the user of the device and another person. The messages sent by another person include a first message sent from a first address associated with the other person and a second message sent from a second address associated with the other person, the second The address is different from said first address.

Another aspect of the invention relates to a portable electronic device having a touch screen display, the device comprising: means for displaying in chronological order a set of messages exchanged between a user of the device and another person. The messages sent by another person include a first message sent from a first address associated with the other person and a second message sent from a second address associated with the other person, the second The address is different from said first address.

Thus, the present invention provides a transparent and intuitive user interface for creating, viewing and finding instant messaging conversations on a portable electronic device with a touch screen display.

Description of drawings

For a better understanding of the above-described embodiments of the present invention and additional embodiments thereof, reference should be made to the following Detailed Description in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like numerals indicate corresponding parts throughout.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a portable electronic device with a touch-sensitive display, according to some embodiments.

Figure 2 illustrates a portable electronic device with a touch screen according to some embodiments.

Figure 3 illustrates an exemplary user interface for unlocking a portable electronic device in accordance with some embodiments.

Figure 4 illustrates an exemplary user interface of an application menu on a portable electronic device in accordance with some embodiments.

5 illustrates an exemplary user interface for listing instant messaging conversations on a portable electronic device, according to some embodiments.

6A through 6K illustrate example user interfaces for entering text for an instant message, according to some embodiments.

Figure 7 illustrates an exemplary user interface for deleting an instant messaging conversation, according to some embodiments.

8A and 8B illustrate example user interfaces for a contact list, according to some embodiments.

9 illustrates an exemplary user interface for entering a phone number for instant messaging, according to some embodiments.

10 is a flowchart illustrating a process for displaying a list of instant messaging conversations on a touch screen of a portable electronic device, according to some embodiments.

11 is a flowchart illustrating a process for displaying a user-selected instant messaging conversation upon detection of predetermined user contact with a touchscreen of a portable electronic device, according to some embodiments.

Figure 12 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for displaying user input characters and word suggestions (if any), according to some embodiments.

13 is a flowchart illustrating a process for displaying a corresponding keyboard upon detection of user contact with a keyboard selection icon, according to some embodiments.

14 is a flowchart illustrating a process for interpreting the meaning of a particular user contact with a shift key, according to some embodiments.

Figure 15 is a flowchart illustrating a process for sending an instant message to a corresponding recipient in accordance with some embodiments.

Figure 16 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for displaying a list of instant messaging conversations for editing in accordance with some embodiments.

Figure 17 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for editing a user-selected instant messaging conversation, according to some embodiments.

18 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for removing a user-selected instant messaging conversation or exiting conversation editing mode, according to some embodiments.

19 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for displaying a list of contacts from which a user selects to send an instant message, according to some embodiments.

Figure 20 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for initiating a new session with a new phone number in accordance with some embodiments.

Figure 21 illustrates an exemplary user interface for alerting a user of new instant messages, according to some embodiments.

Detailed ways

Reference will now be made in detail to embodiments, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known methods, procedures, components, circuits and networks have not been described in detail so as not to unnecessarily obscure aspects of the embodiments.

Embodiments of portable multifunction devices, user interfaces for such devices, and associated processes for using these devices are described. In some embodiments, the device is a portable communication device such as a mobile phone that also includes other functionality (eg, PDA and/or music player functionality).

The user interface may include a physical click wheel in addition to the touch screen or a virtual click wheel displayed on the touch screen. A click wheel is a user interface device capable of providing navigation commands based on the angular displacement of the wheel or a point of contact with the wheel by a device user. Clicking the scroll wheel may also be used to provide user commands corresponding to selection of one or more items, eg, where a user of the device presses at least a portion of the scroll wheel or the center of the scroll wheel. Alternatively, breaking contact with the click wheel image on the touchscreen surface may indicate a user command corresponding to a selection. For simplicity, in the following discussion, a portable electronic device including a touch screen is used as an exemplary embodiment. However, it should be understood that some user interfaces and associated processes can be applied to other devices, such as personal Computers and laptops.

In addition to instant messaging, the device can support a variety of other applications, such as telephony applications; video conferencing applications; e-mail applications; blogging applications; digital camera applications; digital video camera applications; web browsing applications ; a digital music player application; and/or a digital video player application.

Various applications executable on the device may employ at least one common physical user interface device, such as a touch screen. One or more functions of the touch screen and corresponding information displayed on the device may be adjusted and/or changed from one application to the next and/or within each application. In this way, a common physical architecture of a device, such as a touch screen, can support multiple applications with an intuitive and transparent user interface.

The user interface may include one or more soft keyboard implementations. Soft keyboard implementations may include standard (QWERTY) and/or non-standard configurations of symbols on keyboard display icons, e.g., U.S. Patent Application 11/459,606, filed July 24, 2006, entitled "Keyboards For Portable Electronic Devices" and those configurations described in U.S. Patent Application 11/459,615, entitled "Touch Screen Keyboards For Portable Electronics Devices," filed July 24, 2006, the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. Keyboard implementations may include a reduced number of icons (or soft keys) relative to the number of keys on existing physical keyboards, such as the keys on a typewriter. This may make it easier for the user to select one or more icons on the keyboard, and thereby select one or more corresponding symbols. Keyboard implementations may be adaptable. For example, displayed icons may be modified according to user actions (eg, selection of one or more icons and/or one or more corresponding symbols). One or more applications on the portable device may utilize common and/or different keyboard implementations. Thus, the keyboard implementation used can be adapted to at least some applications. In some implementations, one or more keyboard implementations may be tailored to each user. For example, based on each user's history of word usage (lexicography, slang, personal usage). Some keyboard implementations may be adjusted to reduce the probability of user error when using a soft keyboard implementation when selecting one or more icons and thereby selecting one or more symbols.

Attention is now directed to an embodiment of the device. 1 is a block diagram illustrating a portable multifunction device 100 with a touch-sensitive display 112 in accordance with some embodiments. For convenience, touch-sensitive display 112 is sometimes referred to as a "touch screen." Device 100 may include memory 102 (which may include one or more computer-readable storage media), memory controller 122, one or more processing units (CPUs) 120, peripherals interface 118, RF circuitry 108, audio circuitry 110, Speaker 111 , microphone 113 , input/output (I/O) subsystem 106 , other input or control devices 116 , and external port 124 . Device 100 may include one or more optical sensors 164 . These components may communicate via one or more communication buses or signal lines 103 .

It should be understood that device 100 is merely one example of a portable electronic device 100, and that device 100 may have more or fewer components than shown, may combine two or more components, or may have a different configuration of components or settings. The various components shown in FIG. 1 may be implemented in hardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software, including one or more signal processing and/or application specific integrated circuits.

Memory 102 may include high-speed random access memory, and may also include non-volatile memory, such as one or more magnetic disk storage devices, flash memory devices, or other non-volatile solid-state storage devices. Access to memory 102 by other components of device 100, such as CPU 120 and peripherals interface 118, may be controlled by memory controller 122.

Peripherals interface 118 couples the device's input and output peripherals to CPU 120 and memory 102. One or more processors 120 run or execute various software programs and/or sets of instructions stored in memory 102 to implement various functions of device 100 and process data.

In some embodiments, peripherals interface 118 , CPU 120 , and memory controller 122 may be implemented on a single chip such as chip 104 . In some other embodiments, they may be implemented on separate chips.

RF (Radio Frequency) circuitry 108 receives and transmits RF signals, which are also referred to as electromagnetic signals. The RF circuit 108 converts/converts the electrical signal to/from an electromagnetic signal and communicates with a communication network and other communication devices through the electromagnetic signal. RF circuitry 108 may include known circuitry for performing these functions including, but not limited to, an antenna system, an RF transceiver, one or more amplifiers, a tuner, one or more oscillators, a digital signal processor, a CODEC chip groups, Subscriber Identity Module (SIM) cards, memory, and more. RF circuitry 108 may communicate wirelessly with networks such as the Internet (also known as the World Wide Web (WWW)), intranets, and/or wireless networks such as cellular telephone networks, wireless local area networks (LANs), and/or metropolitan area networks (MANs). and other devices for communication. Wireless communications may utilize any of a number of communications standards, protocols, and technologies including, but not limited to, Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), Enhanced Data GSM Environment (EDGE), High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA), Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (W-CDMA), Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA), Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), Bluetooth, Wireless Fidelity (Wi-Fi) (for example, IEEE 802.11a, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g and/or IEEE 802.11n), Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), Wi-MAX, for e-mail (for example, Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) and/or Post Office Protocol (POP)), Instant Messaging (e.g., Extensible Messaging Presence Protocol (XMPP), Session Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence Support Extensions (SIMPLE), and/or Instant Messaging Presence Services (IMPS)), and/or short messaging service (SMS), or any other suitable communication protocol (including communication protocols that had not yet been developed at the date of filing the application).

Audio circuitry 110 , speaker 111 , and microphone 113 provide an audio interface between a user and device 100 . The audio circuit 110 receives audio data from the peripheral interface 118 , converts the audio data into an electrical signal, and sends the electrical signal to the speaker 111 . The speaker 111 converts the electrical signal into sound waves audible to humans. The audio circuit 110 also receives electrical signals converted from sound waves by the microphone 113 . Audio circuitry 110 converts the electrical signal into audio data and sends the audio data to peripherals interface 118 for processing. Audio data may be retrieved from and/or sent to memory 102 and/or RF circuitry 108 via peripherals interface 118 . In some embodiments, audio circuitry 110 also includes a headphone jack (not shown). The headphone jack provides audio circuitry 110 with detachable audio input/output peripherals (e.g., an output-only headphone or both outputs (e.g., a headphone for one or both ears) and An interface between headphones with an input (for example, a microphone).

I/O subsystem 106 couples input/output peripherals on device 100 (eg, touch screen 112 and other input/control devices 116 ) to peripherals interface 118 . I/O subsystem 106 may include a display controller 156 and one or more input controllers 160 for other input or control devices. The one or more input controllers 160 receive/send electrical signals from/to other input or control devices 116 . Other input/control devices 116 may include physical buttons (eg, push buttons, rocker buttons, etc.), dials, slide switches, joysticks, click wheels, and the like. In some alternative embodiments, input controller 160 may be coupled to any (or none) of the following: a keyboard, an infrared port, a USB port, and a pointing device such as a mouse. The one or more buttons (eg, 208 in FIG. 2 ) may include up/down buttons for volume control of speaker 111 and/or microphone 113 . The one or more buttons may include a push button (eg, 206 in FIG. 2 ). A quick press of the push button disengages the touchscreen 112 from the lock, or initiates a process using gestures on the touchscreen to unlock the device, as described in U.S. Patent Application 11/322,549 (filed December 23, 2005, entitled "Unlocking a Device by Performing Gestures on an UnlockImage"), the entire contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference. A long press on a push button (eg, 206 ) can power on or off device 100 . A user may be able to customize the functionality of one or more buttons. The touch screen 112 is used to implement virtual or soft buttons and one or more soft keyboards.

The touch-sensitive touch screen 112 provides an input and output interface between the device and a user. The display controller 156 receives and/or sends electrical signals from/to the touch screen 112 . Touch screen 112 displays visual output to the user. Visual output may include graphics, text, icons, video, and any combination thereof (collectively "graphics"). In some embodiments, some or all of the visual output may correspond to user interface objects, a more detailed description of which is given below.

Touch screen 112 has a touch-sensitive surface, sensor or set of sensors for accepting input from a user based on haptic and/or tactile contact. Touch screen 112 and display controller 156 (and any associated modules and/or instruction sets in memory 102) detect contact (and any movement or break of the touch) on touch screen 112 and translate the detected contact into an Interaction of user interface objects (eg, one or more soft keys, icons, web pages, or images) displayed on the touch screen. In one example embodiment, the point of contact between the touch screen 112 and the user corresponds to a finger of the user.

The touch screen 112 may utilize LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) technology or LPD (Light Emitting Polymer Display) technology, although other display technologies may be used in other embodiments. Touch screen 112 and display controller 156 may utilize any of a variety of now known or later developed touch sensing technologies including, but not limited to, capacitive, resistive, infrared, and surface acoustic wave technologies, as well as other proximity A sensor array or other element for determining one or more points of contact with the touch screen 112 to detect contact and any movement or break of contact. The touch-sensitive display in some embodiments of the touch screen 112 may be compatible with the multi-touch sensitive displays described in US Pat. Graphical input devices (tablets) are similar, and the entire contents of each of the aforementioned patents and patent publications are hereby incorporated by reference. However, the touch screen 112 displays visual output from the portable device 100, whereas the touch-sensitive graphical input device does not provide visual output. The touch screen 112 may have a resolution exceeding 100 dpi. In one exemplary embodiment, the touch screen in the display system has a resolution of approximately 168 dpi. A user may make contact with touch screen 112 with any suitable object or accessory, such as a stylus, finger, or the like. In some embodiments, the user interface is designed to work primarily with finger-based contact and gestures, which are much less precise than stylus-based input due to the larger contact area of a finger on a touchscreen . In some embodiments, the device translates rough finger-based input into precise pointer/cursor positions or commands for performing the user's desired action.

The touch-sensitive display in some embodiments of the touch screen 112 may be as described in: (1) U.S. Patent Application No. 11/381,313, filed May 2, 2006, entitled "Multipoint Touch Surface Controller"; (2) U.S. Patent Application No. 10/840,862, filed May 6, 2004, entitled "Multipoint Touchscreen"; (3) U.S. Patent, filed July 30, 2004, entitled "Gestures For TouchSensitive Input Devices" Application No. 10/903,964; (4) U.S. Patent Application No. 11/048,264, filed January 31, 2005, entitled "Gestures For Touch Sensitive Input Devices"; (5) filed January 18, 2005 titled U.S. Patent Application No. 11/038,590 for "Mode-Based Graphical User Interfaces For Touch Sensitive Input Devices"; (6) U.S. Patent entitled "Virtual Input Device Placement On A Touch Screen UserInterface" filed September 16, 2005 Application No. 11/228,758; (7) U.S. Patent Application No. 11/228,700, filed September 16, 2005, entitled "Operation Of A Computer With A Touch Screen Interface"; (8) Filed September 16, 2005 U.S. Patent Application No. 11/228,737, entitled "Activating Virtual Keys Of A Touch-Screen Virtual Keyboard," and (9) U.S. Patent, filed March 3, 2006, entitled "Multi-Functional Hand-Held Device" Application No. 11/367,749. The entire contents of all these applications are hereby incorporated by reference.

In some embodiments, in addition to the touch screen, the device 100 may further include a touch pad (not shown) for activating or deactivating certain functions. In some embodiments, a touchpad is a touch-sensitive area of a device that does not display visual output, unlike a touchscreen. The touchpad may be a touch-sensitive surface separate from the touchscreen 112, or an extension of the touch-sensitive surface formed by the touchscreen.

In some embodiments, device 100 may include a physical or virtual click wheel as input control device 116 . The user can rotate the click wheel or by moving the point of contact with the click wheel (e.g., where the amount of movement of the point of contact is measured by an angular displacement relative to the center point of the click wheel), to activate one or more of the buttons displayed on the touch screen 112. Navigate among and interact with graphical objects (hereinafter referred to as icons). Clicking the wheel can also be used to select one or more display icons. For example, a user may depress at least a portion of a click wheel or an associated button. User commands and navigation commands provided by the user via clicking the scroll wheel may be processed by the input controller 160 and one or more modules and/or sets of instructions in the memory 102 . For a virtual click wheel, the click wheel and click wheel controller may be part of touch screen 112 and display controller 156, respectively. For a virtual click wheel, the click wheel may be an opaque or translucent object that appears and disappears on the touch screen display in response to user interaction with the device. In some embodiments, a virtual click wheel is displayed on the touch screen of the portable multifunction device and is operated by user contact with the touch screen.

Device 100 also includes a power system 162 for powering various components. Power system 162 may include a power management system, one or more power sources (e.g., batteries, alternating current (AC)), recharging systems, power failure detection circuits, power converters or inverters, power status indicators (e.g., light emitting diodes (LEDs), and any other components associated with the generation, management, and distribution of power in portable electronic devices.

Device 100 may also include one or more optical sensors 164 . FIG. 1 shows an optical sensor coupled to optical sensor controller 158 in I/O subsystem 106 . Optical sensor 164 may include a charge coupled device (CCD) or a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) phototransistor. Optical sensor 164 receives light from the environment projected through one or more lenses and converts the light into data representing an image. In conjunction with imaging module 143, optical sensor 164 may capture still images or video. In some embodiments, the optical sensor is located on the back of the device 100, opposite the touch screen display 112 located on the front of the device, so that the touch screen display can be used as a viewfinder for still and/or video image acquisition. In some embodiments, an optical sensor is located on the front of the device so that an image of the user can be obtained for a video conference while the user is viewing other video conference participants on the touch screen display. In some embodiments, the user can change the position of the optical sensor 164 (e.g., by turning the lens and sensor in the device housing), so that a single optical sensor 164 can be used with the touch screen display for video conferencing and still and/or video image acquisition .

Device 100 may also include one or more proximity sensors 166 . FIG. 1 shows proximity sensor 166 coupled to peripherals interface 118 . Alternatively, proximity sensor 166 may be coupled to input controller 160 in I/O subsystem 106 . Proximity sensor 166 may be implemented as described in U.S. Patent Application No. 11/241,839, filed September 30, 2005, entitled "Proximity Detector In Handheld Device"; and U.S. Patent Application No. 11/240,788, entitled "Proximity Detector In Handheld Device," which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. In some embodiments, the proximity sensor is turned off and the touchscreen 112 is disabled when the multifunction device is placed to the user's ear (eg, when the user is on a phone call). In some embodiments, the proximity sensor turns off the screen when the device is in a user's pocket, purse, or other dark area to prevent unnecessary battery drain when the device is locked.

Device 100 may also include one or more accelerometers 168 . FIG. 1 shows accelerometer 168 coupled to peripherals interface 118 . Alternatively, accelerometer 168 may be coupled to input controller 160 in I/O subsystem 106 . The accelerometer 168 can be found in US Patent Publication No. 20050190059 entitled "Acceleration-based Theft Detection System for Portable Electronic Devices" and US Patent Publication No. 20060017692 entitled "Methods And Apparatuses For Operating A Portable Device Based On An Accelerometer" As described, the entire contents of the above two patent publications are hereby incorporated by reference. In some embodiments, the information is displayed on the touch screen display in a portrait view or a landscape view based on analysis of data received from one or more accelerometers.

In some embodiments, the software components stored in memory 102 may include operating system 126, communication module (or instruction set) 128, touch/move module (or instruction set) 130, graphics module (or instruction set) 132, text input Modules (or instruction sets) 134 , Global Positioning System (GPS) modules (or instruction sets) 135 , and applications (or instruction sets) 136 .

Operating system 126 (e.g., Darwin, RTXC, LINUX, UNIX, OS X, WINDOWS, or an embedded operating system such as VxWorks) includes tools for controlling and managing general system tasks (e.g., memory management, storage device control, power management, etc.), and facilitate communication between the various hardware and software components.

Communications module 128 facilitates communication with other devices via one or more external ports 124 and also includes various software components for processing data received by RF circuitry 108 and/or external ports 124 . External port 124 (eg, Universal Serial Bus (USB), FIREWIRE, etc.) is adapted to couple to other devices directly or indirectly through a network (eg, Internet, wireless LAN, etc.). In some embodiments, the external port is a multi-pin (eg, 30-pin) connector that is the same as, similar to, and/or compatible with the 30-pin connector employed in iPod (trademark of Apple Computer Inc.) devices.

Contact/movement module 130 may detect contact with touch screen 112 (in conjunction with display controller 156 ) and other touch-sensitive devices (eg, a touchpad or physical click wheel). The contact/movement module 130 includes various software components for performing various operations related to detecting a contact, such as determining whether a contact has occurred, determining whether the contact has moved and tracking the movement on the touch screen 112, And it is determined whether the contact has been broken (ie, whether the contact has ceased). Determining movement of the point of contact may include determining velocity (magnitude), velocity (magnitude and direction), and/or acceleration (change in magnitude and/or direction) of the point of contact. These operations can be applied to a single contact (eg, one finger contact) or to multiple simultaneous contacts (eg, "multi-touch"/multi-finger contact). In some embodiments, contact/movement module 130 and display controller 156 also detect contact on a touchpad. In some embodiments, contact/movement module 130 and controller 160 detect contact on click wheel 116 .

Graphics module 132 includes various known software components for rendering and displaying graphics on touch screen 112, including components for changing the intensity of displayed graphics. The term "graphics" as used herein includes any object that may be displayed to a user, including but not limited to text, web pages, icons (such as user interface objects including soft keys), digital images, video, animations, and the like.

A text input module 134, which may be a component of the graphics module 132, provides a user interface for use in various applications (e.g., contacts 137, email 140, IM 141, blog 142, browser 147, and any other application that requires text input). program) to enter text in the soft keyboard.

The GPS module 135 determines the location of the device and provides this information for use in various applications (e.g., to the phone 138 for location-based dialing, to the camera 143 and/or to the blogging facility 142 as picture/video metadata, and to the For applications that provide location-based services such as weather widgets, local yellow pages widgets, and map/navigation widgets).

Application program 136 may include the following modules (or sets of instructions) or a subset or superset thereof:

● Contacts module 137 (sometimes called address book or contact list);

● Telephone module 138;

● video conferencing module 139;

- Email client module 140;

An instant messaging (IM) module 141;

● blog module 142;

A camera module 143 for still and/or video images;

● image management module 144;

- Video player module 145;

- Music player module 146;

● browser module 147;

- calendar module 148;

Widget modules 149, which may include a weather widget 149-1, a stock widget 149-2, a calculator widget 149-3, an alarm clock widget 149-4, a dictionary widget 149-5 , and other widgets obtained by the user, as well as user-created widgets 149-6;

a widget creator module 150 for forming user-created widgets 149-6; and/or

• Search module 151 .

Examples of other applications 136 that may be stored in memory 102 include notepad and other word processing applications, JAVA enabled applications, encryption, digital rights management, speech recognition, and speech replication.

In combination with the RF circuit 108, the touch screen 112, the display controller 156, the contact module 130, the graphics module 132, and the text input module 134, the instant messaging module 141 can be used to input character sequences corresponding to instant messages, modify previously input characters, Send instant messages (for example, using the Short Message Service (SMS) or Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) protocol for telephone-based instant messaging, or XMPP, SIMPLE, or IMPS for Internet-based instant messaging), receive instant messages, and view IM conversations comprising messages exchanged between the user of the portable device 100 and various other persons. In some embodiments, instant messages sent and/or received may include graphics, photos, audio files, video files, and/or other attachments as supported by MMS and/or Enhanced Messaging Service (EMS). "Instant messaging" as used in the text refers to phone-based messaging (eg, messages sent using SMS or MMS) and Internet-based messaging (eg, messages sent using XMPP, SIMPLE, or IMPS). Embodiments of the user interface and associated processes utilizing the instant messaging module 141 are described further below.

It should be noted that the above-mentioned modules and application programs (including the instant messaging module 141) correspond to an instruction set for performing one or more of the above-mentioned functions. These modules (ie, sets of instructions) need not be implemented as separate software programs, procedures or modules, and thus various subsets of these modules may be combined or otherwise rearranged in various embodiments. In some embodiments, memory 102 may store a subset of the modules and data structures described above. Furthermore, memory 102 may store additional modules and data structures not described above.

In some embodiments, device 100 is a device in which operations for a predetermined set of functions on the device are performed exclusively through touchscreen 112 and/or a touchpad. By utilizing a touchscreen and/or touchpad as the primary input/control device for operation of device 100, the number of physical input/control devices (eg, push buttons, dials, etc.) on device 100 may be reduced.

A predetermined set of functions that may be performed exclusively through the touchscreen and/or touchpad includes navigation between user interfaces. In some embodiments, the touchpad, when touched by a user, navigates device 100 from any user interface that may be displayed on device 100 to a home, home, or root menu. In such an embodiment, the touchpad may be referred to as a "menu button." In some other embodiments, the menu button may be a physical push button or other physical input/control device instead of a touchpad.

FIG. 2 illustrates a portable multifunction device 100 with a touch screen 112 in accordance with some embodiments. The touch screen can display one or more graphics. In this embodiment, as well as other embodiments described below, a user may contact or touch one or more Graph to select the graph in question. In some embodiments, selecting the one or more graphics occurs when the user loses contact with the one or more graphics. In some embodiments, contact may include gestures, such as one or more taps, one or more swipes (left to right, right to left, up and/or down), and gestures that have been in contact with device 100. Finger scrolling (right to left, left to right, up and/or down). In some embodiments, unintentional contact with a graphic does not select the graphic. For example, a swipe gesture that sweeps over an application icon may not select the corresponding application when the gesture corresponding to selection is a tap. In other words, the portable electronic device 100 interprets the meaning of the gesture and acts accordingly after considering what application or module is being used at the time.

Device 100 may also include one or more physical buttons, such as a “home” or menu button 204 . As previously mentioned, menu button 204 may be used to navigate to any application 136 in a set of applications executable on device 100 . Alternatively, in some embodiments, the menu buttons are implemented as soft keys in the GUI on the touch screen 112 .

In one embodiment, the device 100 includes a touch screen 112 , a menu button 204 , a push button 206 for powering on/off and locking the device, and a volume adjustment button 208 . The push button 206 can be used to power on/off the device by pressing the button and keeping the button pressed for a predetermined time interval; latched by pressing the button and releasing the button before the aforementioned predetermined time interval elapses the device; and/or unlock the device or initiate an unlock process. In alternative embodiments, device 100 may also accept verbal input through microphone 113 to activate or deactivate some functions.

Attention is now directed to an embodiment of a user interface ("UI") and associated processing that may be implemented on portable multifunction device 100 .

Figure 3 illustrates an example user interface for unlocking a portable electronic device in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, user interface 300 includes the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

An unlock image 302 that is moved to unlock the device with a finger gesture;

An arrow 304 providing a visual cue of the unlocking gesture;

- Channel 306 providing additional prompts for unlocking gestures;

● time 308;

●Day 310;

● date 312; and

● 314 wallpaper images.

In some embodiments, while the device is in the user interface locked state, the device detects contact with the touch-sensitive display (eg, a user's finger makes contact on or near unlock image 302 ). The device moves the unlock image 302 according to the contact. If the detected contact corresponds to a predetermined gesture, such as moving the unlock image across the channel 306, the device transitions to the user interface unlocked state. Conversely, if the detected contact does not correspond to the predetermined gesture, the device remains in the user interface locked state. As noted above, the process by which a user makes gestures on a touchscreen to unlock a device is described in U.S. Patent Application 11/322,549, filed December 23, 2005, entitled "Unlocking a Device by Performing Gestures on an Unlock Image" , the entire content of this patent application is hereby incorporated by reference.

Figure 4 illustrates an exemplary user interface for an application menu on a portable electronic device in accordance with some embodiments. In some embodiments, user interface 400 includes the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

● A signal strength indicator 402 for wireless communication;

● time 404;

- battery status indicator 406;

• A tray 408 with icons for frequently used applications such as:

○Call 138;

o an email client 140, which may include an indicator 410 of the number of unread emails;

o Browser 147; and

o Music player 146; and

● Icons for other applications, such as:

○ IM 141;

○ Image Management 144

○ camera 143;

○ Video player 145;

○Weather 149-1;

○Stock 149-2;

○ Blog 142;

○Calendar 148;

○ Calculator 149-3;

○Alarm clock 149-4;

○ Dictionary 149-5; and

○ A user creates a widget 149-6.

In some embodiments, UI 400 displays all available applications 136 on one screen, eliminating the need to scroll through the list of applications (eg, via a scroll bar). In some embodiments, as the number of application programs increases, the size of icons corresponding to the application programs can be reduced, so that all application programs can be displayed on a single screen without scrolling. In some embodiments, with all applications on one screen, the menu button enables the user to use features such as activating the menu button 204 and then activating the desired application (e.g., by tapping on the icon corresponding to that application). Up to two inputs (tap or other finger gestures) can access any desired application.

In some embodiments, UI 400 provides integrated access to widget-based and non-widget-based applications. In some embodiments, all widgets are displayed in UI 400 whether they are user created or not. In other embodiments, activating the icon for the user-created widget 149-6 may lead to another UI (not shown) containing the user-created widget or an icon corresponding to the user-created widget.

In some embodiments, the user can rearrange the icons in UI 400 using the process described in U.S. Patent Application No. 11/459,602, filed July 24, 2006, entitled "Portable Electronic Device With Interface Reconfiguration Mode" , the entire content of the above patent application is hereby incorporated by reference. For example, a user may move application icons in and out of tray 408 with a finger gesture.

In some embodiments, UI 400 includes a meter (not shown) that displays an updated account usage metric for an account (e.g., a cellular phone account) associated with usage of the device, as on December 23, 2005 As described in U.S. Patent Application 11/322,552 filed entitled "Account Information Display For Portable Communication Device," which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

5 illustrates an exemplary user interface for listing instant messaging conversations on a portable electronic device, according to some embodiments. An instant messaging session includes a set of messages exchanged between a user of a portable electronic device and one or more other persons. In some embodiments, user interface 500 includes the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

● 402, 404 and 406, as above;

● "instant message" or other similar designation 502;

The user has the name 504 of the person with whom the instant messaging session is conducted (e.g., JaneDoe 504-1), or a phone number if the corresponding person's name is not available (e.g., 408-123-4567 504-3);

The text 506 of the last message or part thereof in the conversation (note that this last message may be the last message sent or received by the user);

● the date 508 and/or time of the last message in the conversation;

Select icon 510, which when activated (e.g., by a finger gesture on the icon) initiates a transition to the corresponding session's UI (e.g., for Jane Doe 504-1 in Figure 6A);

- Edit icon 512, which when activated (eg, by a finger gesture on the icon) initiates a transition to a UI (eg, Figure 7) for deleting a session;

Create a message icon 514 that when activated (eg, by a finger gesture on the icon) initiates a transition to the user's contact list (eg, FIG. 8A ); and

• A vertical bar 516 that helps the user understand which part of the list of instant messaging conversations is being displayed.

10 is a flowchart illustrating a process for displaying a list of instant messaging conversations on a touch screen of a portable electronic device, according to some embodiments. Upon detecting a finger gesture (1002) (eg, finger tap 412 on IM icon 141 in FIG. 4), IM module 141 identifies a set of IM conversations (1004) and displays them on the touch screen (1006). In order to be able to edit an existing session or start a new session, the portable device may display an edit icon 512 and a create message icon 514 respectively on the touch screen (1008). The portable device monitors user contact with the touch screen and acts accordingly (1010).

As shown in FIG. 5, the session list may be displayed in chronological order. The conversation with "Jane Doe" is at the top because it is the only conversation that contains at least one message created by 508-1 today (which in this example is assumed to be January 29, 2006). In some embodiments, the conversations are ordered by the timestamp of the most recent message in each conversation. In some embodiments, conversations that include at least one message that has not been viewed by the user are highlighted on the touchscreen. For example, the third conversation in the list is displayed with bold characters, implying that the user has not viewed the latest message sent by the person with the phone number 408-123-4567.

In some embodiments, the name 504 associated with the instant messaging session is determined by looking in the user's contact list 137 for an entry containing the phone number used by the instant messaging session. If no such entry is found, only the phone number is displayed (e.g., 504-3). In some embodiments, if another person sends a message from two or more different If all phone numbers used are found in the same entry in list 137 (ie, the entry for the other person), then the message can appear in the same conversation including that person's name. In some embodiments, a conversation includes a message sent from a phone number and/or email address associated with another person. In some embodiments, the message sent by another person includes a first message sent from a first address associated with the other person and a message sent from a first address associated with the other person different from the first address. The second message sent by the second address. In some embodiments, the first address is a phone number and the second address is an email address. In some embodiments, the first and second addresses are two distinct phone numbers. In some embodiments, the first and second addresses are two distinct email addresses.

In some other embodiments, if another person sends messages from two or more different phone numbers, the messages may appear in different conversations corresponding to the different numbers. A phone number or other identifier is displayed next to the person's name to distinguish these conversations from one another.

In some embodiments, the name field of an instant messaging conversation includes the names or other identifiers of the parties participating in the conversation as recipients and/or senders of the message. If there is no room to display all names, a selected subset of names are displayed with a symbol like "..." at the end, thus indicating that there are more parties in the session. By default, messages from the user of the portable electronic device are sent to all parties in the conversation. For simplicity, the embodiments of IM sessions described subsequently herein include only two parties, the user and another person. But those skilled in the art will appreciate that the methods described in this invention are also applicable to IM sessions involving more than two parties.

Automatically packing instant messages into "conversations" (instant messages exchanged between the user of the device and various people or phone numbers) makes it easier for the user to implement and track instant message exchanges with multiple parties. As will be described below, not only can the user see the last message sent by the other party, the user can also access old messages exchanged between the user and the other party.

In some embodiments, the vertical bar 516 is displayed temporarily after an object is detected on or near the touch screen display (eg, a finger touch is detected anywhere on a list of instant messaging conversations). In some embodiments, the vertical position of the vertical bar 516 on the displayed portion of the list corresponds to the vertical position of the displayed portion of the list within the list. In some embodiments, vertical bar 516 has a vertical length corresponding to the portion of the list being displayed. In some embodiments, vertical bar 516 is not displayed if the entire IM conversation list can be displayed on touch screen 112 at the same time. In some embodiments, vertical bar 516 is displayed having a length corresponding to the length of the list display area (eg, as shown in FIG. 5 ) if the entire IM conversation list can be displayed simultaneously on touch screen 112 .

As described above, the portable device monitors (1010) the user's contact with the conversation list. When a user swipes (1012) a finger or stylus across the touch screen in a substantially vertical direction, the user contact may be interpreted as a scrolling gesture. In some embodiments, the scrolling gesture is independent of the horizontal position of the user's contact with the touchscreen display. In some embodiments, the scrolling gesture is substantially independent of the horizontal position of the user's contact with the touchscreen display (e.g., one or more side areas of the touchscreen display may be reserved for other functions, such as corresponding to icons, softkeys, or functionality of the app's navigation features, and these areas cannot be used for scrolling gestures). The portable electronic device scrolls the session list accordingly and displays different portions of the session list (1020).

As shown in FIG. 5 , the conversation list moves in a direction consistent with scroll gesture 516 . If the scroll gesture is down (or up), the session list is also moved down (or up). Scrolling down the session list typically scrolls the list to earlier entries in the list until the first entry is reached (eg, Jane Doe 504-1). But if the user doesn't have many IM sessions, the portable electronic device can display the entire list of sessions without scrolling gestures.

If the user taps (1018) on the edit icon 512 with a finger or stylus, the portable electronic device replaces the conversation list UI with a new UI that allows the user to edit the conversation. The session editing feature will be described in more detail below with reference to FIGS. 7 and 16 .

Similarly, if the user taps (1019) on the message creation icon 514, the portable electronic device replaces the conversation list UI with a new UI that allows the user to create a new instant message and thus a new conversation. This feature will be described in more detail below with reference to FIGS. 8A-8B , 9 and 19 .

If the user taps (1014) on a particular conversation in the list, the portable electronic device interprets the tap as a gesture indicating that the user wishes to view messages associated with the user-selected conversation. Accordingly, the portable electronic device replaces the conversation list UI shown in FIG. 5 with the conversation UI shown in FIG. 6A.

6A through 6K illustrate example user interfaces for entering text for an instant message, according to some embodiments.

In some embodiments, user interface 600A (FIG. 6A) includes the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

● 402, 404 and 406, as above;

The name 504 corresponding to the phone number used in the instant messaging session (or, if the name is not available, the phone number itself);

An instant message icon 602 which, when activated (e.g., by a finger gesture on the icon), initiates a transition to a UI (e.g., UI 500) listing instant message sessions;

The instant messages 604 from the other party listed sequentially along one side of the UI 600A;

Instant messages 606 to the other party, which are usually listed sequentially along the opposite side of the UI 600A, to show the back and forth of messages in the conversation;

- Timestamp 608 of at least some of the instant messages;

● Text input box 612;

- Send icon 614, which when activated (e.g., by a finger gesture on the icon) initiates sending the message in text box 612 to another party (e.g., Jane Doe 504-1);

An alphabetic keyboard 616 for entering text in box 612;

- Alternative keyboard selector icon 618, which when activated (eg, by a finger gesture on the icon) initiates display of a different keyboard (eg, 624 in Figure 6C);

- Send icon 620, which when activated (e.g., by a finger gesture on the icon) initiates sending the message in text box 612 to another party (e.g., Jane Doe 504-1)

- Toggle key 628, which when activated (e.g., by a finger gesture on an icon) capitalizes the next letter selected on the alphabetic keyboard 616; and

• A vertical bar 630 that helps the user understand which part of the list of instant messages is being displayed in an IM session.

11 is a flowchart illustrating a process for displaying a user-selected instant messaging conversation upon detection of predetermined user contact with a touchscreen of a portable electronic device, according to some embodiments. In this example, the conversation with Jane Doe is displayed in response to finger gesture 518 (FIG. 5) on the conversation with Jane Doe.

Upon detecting user selection (1102) to a conversation with Jane Doe, the IM module 141 identifies a group of instant messages 604 and 606 (1104) associated with the conversation, and displays the instant messages in the message display area of the touch screen in chronological order. message (1106). The portable electronic device also displays a message composition area on the touch screen (1108) since a user accessing an existing conversation may wish to compose a new instant message to another person. In some embodiments, the message composition area includes a text box 612 for displaying characters entered by the user, a send message icon 614 , an alphabetic keyboard 616 , and a keyboard selector icon 618 . The portable electronic device monitors user contact with the touch screen and responds accordingly (1110).

In some embodiments, the portable electronic device receives an instant message while the user of the device is utilizing another application (eg, browsing the web with browser 147, or listening to music with music player 146). In this case, the device may replace the user interface of the ongoing application with the new user interface on the touch screen 112, or overlay the new user interface on top of the user interface of the ongoing application. Figure 21 illustrates an exemplary user interface for alerting customers of new instant messages, according to some embodiments. The user interface may or may not suspend or terminate ongoing applications. For example, the user can still listen to music while the new user interface appears on the touch screen 112 . This may be true even if the user subsequently chooses to activate the IM module 141 and responds to a new message.

In some embodiments, the new user interface (e.g., UI 2100 in FIG. 21 ) includes the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

The name 2102 of the person who sent the instant message (e.g., Jane Doe), which can be determined by matching the phone number of the incoming instant message with the phone number in the user's contacts 137;

A newly received instant message or a portion thereof 2104 (for example, "Do U want2...");

• A first action icon 2106, eg "ignore"; and

• A second action icon 2108, eg "View".

User selection of the "ignore" icon 2106 causes the user interface of the ongoing application to be taken back, and the user can continue the operation interrupted by the incoming message. User selection of "view" icon 2108 may bypass user interface 500 and take the user directly to user interface 600A that includes the new instant message. The user can then perform any message-related actions as described below.

In some embodiments, a portable electronic device can receive instant messages while it is in a locked mode. In this case, the device may include a visual alert in the user interface 300 indicating the arrival of a new message and/or generate an audio alert through the device's speaker 111 . If the user of the device unlocks the device's touchscreen 112 in response to the visual and/or audio reminder, the user may see user interface 600A (instead of user interface 400 ) on the touchscreen.

As shown in FIG. 6A, an instant message 604 from Jane Doe may be displayed on the left side of the message display area, with the most recent message (eg, 604-2) toward the bottom. The user's message to Jane Doe is on the opposite side of the display area. The relative vertical positions of the messages correspond to the order of these messages exchanged between the user of the device and Jane Doe. A selected timestamp 608 also indicates when these messages were exchanged. In some embodiments, a timestamp is displayed adjacent to the message it is associated with. If the message display area does not have enough space to display the timestamps of each message currently in the message display area, the device may choose to display the timestamps of a subset of the messages, such as the time corresponding to message 604-1 at the top of the message area Stamp 608-1 and timestamp 608-2 corresponding to message 606-2 located at the bottom of the message area. In some embodiments, the device may display the time stamps of more intervening messages, for example if the time interval between two messages is greater than a predetermined threshold. From the instant message, the user can easily catch the subject of the conversation. If desired, the user can browse other older messages that are not currently being displayed by applying a scroll gesture 610 (1112) on the message display area. In response, the portable electronic device scrolls through the set of message conversations (1124). In some embodiments, the scrolling gesture is independent of the horizontal position of the user's contact with the touchscreen display. In some embodiments, as described above, the scrolling gesture is substantially independent of the horizontal position of the user's contact with the touchscreen display.

In some embodiments, the device highlights particular portions of incoming and outgoing messages using, for example, underlining, different fonts or formatting, and/or colors. Typically, highlighted parts are considered to have special meaning, such as phone numbers, URLs, stock tickers, or contact names. These highlighted message parts may be user selectable. For example, a user's finger gesture on the highlighted portion "apple.com" of message 604-2 causes browser 147 to be activated, which will then take to the home page of website www.apple.com. Similarly, a user's finger gesture on a phone number activates the phone 138 and initiates a call to the phone number.

In some embodiments, a vertically downward scroll gesture scrolls the conversation down, thereby displaying older messages in the conversation. In some embodiments, a vertically upward scroll gesture scrolls the conversation up, thereby displaying newer, more recent messages in the conversation. In some embodiments, the last message in the conversation (eg, 606-2) is displayed in the instant messaging conversation list 500 (eg, 506-1), as described above.

In some embodiments, vertical bar 630 is displayed temporarily after an object is detected on or near the touch screen display (eg, a finger touch is detected anywhere on a list of instant messaging conversations). In some embodiments, the vertical position of the vertical bar 630 on the displayed portion of the list corresponds to the vertical position of the displayed portion of the list within the list. In some embodiments, vertical bar 630 has a vertical length corresponding to the portion of the list being displayed. For example, in FIG. 6A, the vertical position of vertical bar 630 indicates that the bottom of the message list (which corresponds to the most recent message) is being displayed, and the vertical length of vertical bar 630 indicates that approximately half of the messages in the conversation are being displayed.

A new instant message is composed in text box 612 in response to the user's finger gestures (1114) on different letter keys in the keyboard. This authoring process will be described in more detail below with reference to FIG. 12 . In some embodiments, the keyboard 616 in FIG. 6A has only 26 English letters due to the limited size of the touch screen. In order to enter characters such as numbers, punctuation, and other special symbols, the user needs to tap (1120) on the keyboard selector icon 618 and/or tap (1116) on the toggle key icon 628 to bring in additional keyboards or to Existing keyboards switch to a different display mode (for example, from uppercase/lowercase letters to lowercase/capital letters). These processes will be described in more detail below with reference to FIGS. 13 and 14, respectively. After completing the new message, the user taps on the send message icon 614 or 620 to send the message to the other participants of the conversation (1118). This transmission processing will be described in more detail below with reference to FIG. 15 .

Figure 12 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for displaying user input characters and word suggestions (if any), according to some embodiments. Upon detecting user selection of a letter key (1202), the portable electronic device displays the user selected letter in text box 612 (1204). To speed up the process of composing a new message, the portable electronic device may determine if it can provide any word suggestions based on user input (1206). To this end, portable electronic devices can apply linguistics-based algorithms to user input (e.g., as in U.S. Patent No. 11/549,624, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety), and display one or more associated words from its database (1208).

As shown in FIG. 6B, user interface 600B (FIG. 6B) includes the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

● 402, 404, 406, 602, 604, 606, 608, 612, 614, 616, 618 and 620 as described above; and

• Word suggestion area 622 which provides a list of possible words to complete the word fragment the user is typing in text box 612 .

In this example, based on the string "vacat" entered by the user, the portable electronic device displays three possible words in area 622, namely "vacant", "vacate" and "vacation". Tap to select any of these three words. Alternatively, the user can ignore all computer-suggested words by tapping on words that exactly match his input. In some embodiments, the portable electronic device also saves the user input as new words in its database. Later, when the user enters the same string or a subset of strings, the portable electronic device may display the new word as one of the word suggestions. In some embodiments, the word suggestion area does not appear in UI 600B until after a predetermined time delay (eg, 2-3 seconds) after the user enters text. In some embodiments, the word suggestion area is not used or can be turned off by the user.

If the portable electronic device has no suggestions or if the option is turned off, the portable electronic device continues to monitor for user contact with the touch screen and acts accordingly (1210).

Additional descriptions of providing word recommendations can be found in U.S. Patent Application No. 11/620,642, entitled "Method, System, and Graphical User Interface for Providing Word Recommendations," filed January 5, 2007, the entire contents of which Quoted here for reference.

As noted above, the keyboard 616 may not include all the characters the user wants to enter. There are many different ways to introduce additional characters. For example, as shown in FIG. 6B , a user may tap on keyboard selector icon 618 to replace current alphabetic keyboard 616 with a new keyboard that includes a different set of characters, such as numbers and/or punctuation.

13 is a flowchart illustrating a process for displaying a corresponding keyboard upon detection of user contact with a keyboard selection icon, according to some embodiments. In response to user selection of keypad selector 618 (1302), the portable electronic device checks what type of keypad is requested (1304). Depending on the type of keyboard requested, the portable electronic device displays an alphabetic keyboard (1308) or a non-alphabetic keyboard (1306). In some embodiments, the meaning of user contact with the keyboard selector icon 618 depends on the current display mode of the keyboard. After displaying the requested keypad, the portable electronic device continues to monitor for user contact with the touch screen (1310).

As shown in FIG. 6C, following the user's finger gesture on the keyboard selector icon 618 in FIG. 6B, a new user interface 600C is presented on the touch screen having the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

● 402, 404, 406, 602, 604, 606, 608, 612, 614, 620 and 622 as above;

An alternative keyboard 624, which may consist primarily of numbers and punctuation, and wherein commonly used punctuation keys (e.g., period key 631, comma key 633, question mark key 635, and exclamation mark key 637) are made larger than the other keys;

- Alphabetic keyboard selector icon 626, which when activated (eg, by a finger gesture on the icon) initiates display of an alphabetic keyboard (eg, 616 in Figure 6A); and

• Toggle key 628, which when activated (eg, by a finger gesture on an icon) initiates display of a further keyboard (eg, 639 in Figure 6D).

Note that the non-alphabetic keyboard selector 618 in FIG. 6B is now replaced by the alphabetic keyboard selector 626 in FIG. 6C. In some embodiments, a period key 631 and a comma key 633 are located near the keyboard selector icon 626 to reduce the distance a user's fingers travel to enter commonly used periods and commas.

But the optional keyboard 624 may not be all-inclusive. For example, it may not have any arithmetic operators such as "+", "-", "*" or "/". A finger gesture on the keyboard selector 626 brings back the alphabetic keyboard 616, but not any new keyboards. In some embodiments, the user may tap on another multifunction key (eg, toggle key 628) to bring in an additional keypad.

In some embodiments, the toggle key 628, like the keyboard selector icons (618, 626), has different meanings in different contexts. FIG. 14 is a flowchart illustrating a process for interpreting the meaning of a particular user contact with a toggle key 628 in accordance with some embodiments. The portable electronic device detects user selection of a toggle key (1402). The portable electronic device checks what keyboard is currently displayed on the touch screen (1404). If the current keyboard is an alphabetic keyboard, a finger gesture on the toggle key causes the portable electronic device to switch the display mode for subsequent user input letters from uppercase to lowercase and vice versa (1406).

Referring back to FIG. 6B , in some embodiments, the portable electronic device displays only the first letter "h" in the first word "how" in capital letters by default. If the user wishes to enter another capital letter in the same sentence, he can tap on the toggle key 628 . As a result, toggle key 628 is displayed in a visually different manner (eg, in a different color or shade) following the finger gesture. In some embodiments, the toggle key 628 returns to lowercase letter mode after the user enters the next letter in uppercase. If the user wishes to enter a sequence of capital letters, he may maintain finger contact with the toggle key 628 for a predetermined extended period of time (eg, 1 to 3 seconds) until the toggle key 628 has a new appearance. In some other embodiments, the toggle key 628 remains in capital letter mode for all subsequent user input letters until another finger gesture on the toggle key 628 is detected.

Returning now to FIG. 14, if the current keyboard is a non-alphabetic keyboard (eg, alternative keyboard 624 in FIG. 6C), user contact with toggle key 628 has a different meaning. Since no characters on keyboard 624 have two different display modes, the portable electronic device replaces keyboard 624 with another non-alphabetic keyboard 639 (1408), and then waits for the next user contact with the touch screen (1410).

FIG. 6D is a screenshot of a corresponding user interface 600D that includes the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

● 402, 404, 406, 602, 604, 606, 608, 612, 614, 620, 622, 626, 628 as described above; and

• Another alternative keyboard 639, which may consist primarily of symbols and punctuation, where common punctuation keys (eg, period key 631, comma key 633, question mark key 635, and exclamation mark key 637) are made larger than the other keys.

Like keyboard 624, no characters in keyboard 639 have two different display modes. In some embodiments, the user can tap again on toggle key 628 to introduce more alternative keyboards with more special characters or symbols. In some embodiments, the user may tap again on toggle key 628 to return to alternative keypad 624 . At any time, the user can also switch back to the alphabetic keyboard by tapping on the keyboard selection icon 626 .

Additional descriptions of selecting a soft keyboard can be found in U.S. Patent Application No. 11/553,431 entitled "Method, System, and Graphical User Interface for Selecting a Soft Keyboard," filed October 26, 2006, all of which The contents are incorporated herein by reference.

After completing the new message, the user sends the message by activating (eg, with a finger gesture) the send message icon 614 or 620 . FIG. 6E depicts such a user interface 600E comprising the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

● 402, 404, 406, 602, 604, 606, 608, 612, 614, 616, 618 and 620 as described above; and

• A new instant message 606-3 sent to the other party.

In some embodiments, this user finger gesture triggers the animation of a new message from text box 612 to the side of the message display area showing messages sent by the user of the device. For example, when the user activates a send key (eg, 614 or 620), the text in text box 612 "pops" or otherwise comes out of the box and becomes part of the string of the user's message 606 to the other party. The black arrow in Figure 6E illustrates the animated formation of quote bubble 606-3. In some embodiments, the size of the quote bubble scales with the size of the message. In some embodiments, a sound, such as a beep, is also emitted to notify the user when the message is sent.

Figure 15 is a flowchart illustrating a process for sending an instant message to a corresponding recipient in accordance with some embodiments. In response to user selection of the send message icon (1502), the portable electronic device checks for any user input in the text box (1504). If not, the user's finger gesture on the send icon may simply be ignored, or an error message displayed on the touch screen (1508). In some embodiments, the visual appearance of send icon 614 is changed (eg, faded) if there is no user input in the text box.

If there is any user input in the text box ("Yes" in 1504), the portable electronic device may optionally perform a spell check on the user input (1506). If there are any spelling mistakes ("Yes" in 1506), an error message and/or word suggestions are displayed on the touch screen for the user to select (1512). If there are no typos, the portable electronic device sends the message and may also animate the movement of the new message from the text box to the message display area (1514). The portable electronic device then monitors for user contact with the touch screen (1516).

In some embodiments, keys in keyboards 616 (FIGS. 6A, 6B, 6E-6K), 624 (FIG. 6C) and/or 639 (FIG. 6D) temporarily change shape, shade and/or Color to help users understand that the desired key is activated. In some embodiments, user selection of any key on the touch screen by finger gesture is accompanied by sound for the same purpose. In some other embodiments, different sounds are associated with different types of keystrokes to indicate what keys the user has "pressed". In some embodiments, outlines or shaded areas corresponding to the user's finger contacts are shown on the keyboard to help train the user.

In some embodiments, a user can delete an instant message from a conversation by a finger tap on the corresponding quote bubble in the message display area. The portable electronic device responsively dims the reference bubble and pops up a small window on the touch screen. The widget may include a "Yes" icon and a "No" icon. If the user reconfirms the decision to delete the message with a finger tap on the "Yes" icon, the portable electronic device removes the quote bubble from the message display area. But if the user selects the "No" icon, the quote bubble continues its normal appearance.

In some embodiments, user interface 600F (FIG. 6F) includes the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

● 402, 404, 406, 612, 614, 616, 618, 620 and 628 as above;

● Recipient input field 632, which when activated (for example, by a finger tap on the field) receives and displays the phone number of the recipient of the instant message (or if the recipient is already in the user's contact list, then display recipient name);

- Adds a recipient icon 634, which when activated (eg, by a finger tap on the icon) initiates display of a scrollable contact list (eg, 638 in Figure 6G); and

• Cancel icon 636, which when activated (eg, by a finger tap on the icon) cancels the new instant message.

In some embodiments, user interface 600G (FIG. 6G) includes the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

● 402, 404, 406, 612, 614, 616, 618, 620, 628, 632, 634 and 636 as above;

- A scrollable list of contacts 638 where contacts match the entry in the recipient input field 632; and

• A vertical bar 640 that helps the user understand how many entries in the contact list that match the entry in the recipient input field 632 are being displayed.

In some embodiments, list 638 contains contacts that match the entry in recipient input field 632 . For example, if the letter "v" is entered, contacts whose first or last names begin with "v" are shown. If the letters "va" are entered in field 632, the contact list is narrowed down to contacts whose first or last name begins with "va", and so on, until selected (e.g., by a contact in list 638 Tap on ) one of the displayed contacts.

In some embodiments, the user can scroll through the list 638 by applying a vertical swipe gesture 642 to the area where the list 638 is displayed. In some embodiments, a vertical down gesture scrolls down the list, and a vertical up gesture scrolls up the list.

In some embodiments, vertical bar 640 is displayed temporarily after an object is detected on or near the touchscreen display (eg, a finger touch is detected anywhere on list 638 ). In some embodiments, the vertical position of the vertical bar 640 on the displayed portion of the list corresponds to the vertical position of the displayed portion of the list within the list. In some embodiments, vertical bar 640 has a vertical length corresponding to the portion of the list being displayed.

In some embodiments, user interfaces 600H (FIG. 6H) and 600I (FIG. 6I) include the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

● 402, 404, 406, 612, 614, 616, 618, 620, 628, 632, 634 and 636 as above;

• Suggested words 644 near the word being entered;

a suggested word 646 in a blank bar in the keyboard 616; and/or

• Insertion marker 656 (eg, cursor, insertion bar, insertion point, or pointer).

In some embodiments, the suggested word 644 is activated (eg, by a finger tap on the suggested word) to replace the word being typed with the suggested word 644 . In some embodiments, the suggested word 646 is activated (eg, by a finger tap on the blank strip) to replace the word being typed with the suggested word 646 . In some embodiments, a user can set whether suggested words 644 and/or 646 are shown (eg, by setting a user preference).

In some embodiments, letters are temporarily enlarged after being selected (eg, "N" is temporarily enlarged after typing "din" in FIG. 6H ) to provide feedback to the user.

In some embodiments, user interfaces 600J (FIG. 6J) and 600K (FIG. 6K) include the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

● 402, 404, 406, 612, 614, 616, 618, 620, 628, 632, 634, 636 and 656 as above;

An expanded portion of the graphic 650 that helps the user adjust the position of an expanded caret marker 657 (sometimes called a "cue point magnifier");

- extended caret 657; and

• A vertical bar 658 indicating which part of an instant message including multiple lines of text is being displayed.

In some embodiments, finger contact 648-1 on or near insertion mark 656 initiates display of insertion point magnifier 650 and extended insertion mark 657-1. In some embodiments, as the finger contact moves across the touch screen (eg, to position 648-2), there is a corresponding movement of the extended insertion marker (eg, to 657-2) and insertion point amplifier 650. Thus, insertion point magnifier 650 provides an efficient way to position a cursor or other insertion marker with finger input on the touch screen. In some embodiments, magnifier 650 remains visible and can be repositioned as long as continuous contact with the touch screen is maintained (eg, from 648-1 to 648-2 or even to 648-3).

In some embodiments, the portable electronic device displays a graphic and an insertion marker (eg, marker 656 in FIG. 61 ) at a first location in the graphic on the touch screen display (eg, FIG. 6I ). In some embodiments, caret 656 is a cursor, caret bar, caret point, or pointer. In some embodiments, the graphic includes text (eg, the text in box 612 in FIG. 61 ).

Detecting Finger Contact with the Touch Screen Display (eg, contact 648-1 in FIG. 61 ) In some embodiments, the location of the finger contact is close to the location of the insertion marker. In some embodiments, the location of the finger contact is anywhere within the text entry area (eg, box 612 in FIG. 61 ).

In response to the detected finger contact, the insertion marker expands on the touch screen display from a first size (eg, marker 656 in FIG. 6I ) to a second size (eg, marker 657-1 in FIG. 6J ), and the touch screen display A portion of the graph of (eg, portion 650-1 in FIG. 6J ) is expanded from the original size to the expanded size.

In some embodiments, the expanded portion of the graphic includes the caret and the nearby graphic. In some embodiments, after the insertion point and the portion of the graphic are expanded, the graphic is displayed including the caret mark and nearby graphic at the original size and the expanded size.

Detect movement of finger contact on the touch screen display (e.g., from 648-1 to 648-2 in FIG. 6J)

The expanded caret marker is moved according to the detected movement of the finger contact from a first location (eg, 657-1 in FIG. 6J ) to a second location (eg, 657-2 in FIG. 6J ) in the graph.

In some embodiments, the expanded portion of the graphic changes as the caret moves from the first position to the second position (eg, from 650-1 to 650-2 in Figure 6J). In some embodiments, the expanded portion of the graphic is displayed in a predetermined shape. In some embodiments, the expanded portion of the graph (eg, 650 in Figure 6J) is displayed as a circle. In some embodiments, the expanded caret 657 is within the circle.

In some embodiments, the detected movement of the finger contact has a horizontal component on the touch screen display and a vertical component on the touch screen display. In some embodiments, moving the expanded caret mark 657 according to the detected movement of the finger contact includes moving according to the horizontal component of the movement of the finger contact if the finger contact moves outside the text entry area without breaking the contact. The expanded caret and the expanded portion of the graphic. For example, in FIG. 61 , if the finger contact moves from 648-2 (within the text input area 612) to 648-3 (in the keyboard area), the expanded insertion point 657 and the expanded portion 650 of the graphic can be moved from The horizontal component of the movement of 648-2 to 648-3 moves horizontally along the lower portion of the text entry area (not shown).

In some embodiments, moving the expanded caret marker in accordance with the detected movement of the finger contact includes moving the expanded caret marker in a first area of the touch screen that includes characters entered using a soft keyboard (e.g., text box 612 in FIG. 6J ). A marker is inserted where the soft keyboard is located in a second area of the touch screen that is separate from the first area (eg, keyboard 616 in FIG. 6J ).

In some embodiments, if finger contact with the touchscreen display is broken, the expanded indicia shrinks from the second size to the first size (eg, indicia 656 in FIG. 6K ). In some embodiments, the shrinking includes an animation of expanded insertion marker 657 shrinking to insertion marker 656 at the second position.

In some embodiments, the expanded portion 650 of the graphic shrinks if finger contact with the touchscreen display is no longer detected for a predetermined time.

A graphical user interface on a portable electronic device with a touch screen display includes insertion indicia and graphics. In response to detecting finger contact 648 with the touch screen display, the insertion marker expands from a first size 656 to a second size 657 and expands portion 650 of the graphic. In response to detecting movement of the finger contact on the touch screen display, the expanded insertion marker is moved according to the detected movement of the finger contact from a first location 657-1 in the graphic to a second location 657-2 in the graphic.

As described above with respect to FIG. 6E, user finger selection of the send key 614 triggers the animation of the message moving from the text box 612 to the message display area. In some embodiments, the size of the text box is expanded as text is entered (eg, from one line of text in FIG. 6H to two lines of text in FIG. 61 ) prior to sending the message. In some embodiments, if the text box 612 has too many lines of text (as shown by the short vertical bar 658), it does not have enough space to display the entire message. When a quote bubble containing a multi-line message comes out of the text box 612, its size may gradually increase until a predetermined condition is met (for example, the quote bubble has enough space to contain the entire message and/or the size of the quote bubble reaches a session-based The number of existing messages in a threshold is determined statically or dynamically by the device). For example, if the text box shows 3 lines out of 10 lines of instant messages, then during the animation that moves the message from the text box 612 to the message display area, the quote bubble can grow from a 3 line quote bubble to a 10 line quote bubble.

Additional descriptions of insertion marker positioning can be found in U.S. Patent Application No. 11/553,436, filed October 26, 2006, entitled "Method, System, And Graphical User Interface For Positioning An Insertion Marker In A Touch Screen Display" , the entire content of the above application is hereby incorporated by reference.

In addition to deleting individual messages from a conversation, an entire conversation can also be deleted via the edit icon 512 in FIG. 5 . Figure 7 illustrates an exemplary user interface for deleting an instant messaging conversation, according to some embodiments. In some embodiments, user interface 700 includes the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

● 402, 404, 406, 504, 506, 508, 510 as above;

- delete icon 702;

● remove icon 704; and

• Done icon 706 .

Figure 16 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for displaying a list of instant messaging conversations for editing in accordance with some embodiments. Upon detecting user selection (1602) of edit icon 512, the portable electronic device associates (1604) delete icon 702 with each session (eg, delete icon 702 appears adjacent to each session). Additionally, the portable electronic device may replace edit icon 512 with done icon 706 (1606), and monitor user contact with the touch screen (1608).

If the user swipes his finger or stylus across the touch screen in a substantially vertical direction (1610), the portable electronic device scrolls the session list (1616). If the user activates the delete icon (eg, with a finger gesture), the portable electronic device continues the delete process for the corresponding session. Exemplary session removal processing is described in more detail below with respect to FIGS. 17 and 18 . But if the user touches the done icon, the portable electronic device removes all delete icons 702 from the touch screen and brings back the session list UI as shown in FIG. 5 .

Figure 17 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for editing a user-selected instant messaging conversation, according to some embodiments. Upon detecting user selection (1702) of a delete icon associated with a session, the portable electronic device changes the appearance of the delete icon (eg, rotates selected delete icon 702-4 90 degrees in FIG. 7) (1704). The portable electronic device associates a confirmation icon (eg, remove icon 704) with the selected session (1706). In some embodiments, at most one confirmation icon is displayed on the touch screen at a time during the editing process. Depending on the next user contact with the touch screen (1708), the portable electronic device can perform different operations on the conversation list. For example, the device may scroll up/down the list in response to the user's scrolling gesture (1710, 1718). The device may bring back the conversation list UI (1714) in response to a finger gesture on the done icon.

18 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for removing a user-selected instant messaging conversation or exiting conversation editing mode, according to some embodiments. If the user selects the confirmation icon (1712, 1802), the portable electronic device removes the session from the touch screen (1804). If the removed session was not last on the list, the portable electronic device may shift other sessions up to fill the space left by the removed session (1806). A finger gesture (1716, 1803) on the modified delete icon 702-4, or in some embodiments anywhere on the touch screen other than the confirmation icon 704, indicates the user's decision not to delete the session. Accordingly, the portable electronic device changes the delete icon back to its original appearance (1805), and removes the confirmation icon from the touch screen (1807).

After operation 1806 or 1807, the portable electronic device continues to monitor user contact with the touch screen (1808). For example, when the user has finished deleting the IM session, the user can activate the icon (1814) by tapping on the done icon 706 with a finger, and the device returns to the UI 500. The user may delete another session by activating the associated delete icon (1812). If there is a long conversation list that fills more than the screen area, the user can scroll through the list with the vertical up and/or vertical down gesture 708 on the touch screen (1810, 1816).

This session movement process requiring multiple gestures by the user on different parts of the touchscreen (eg, delete icon 702-4 and confirm icon 704 are on opposite sides of the touchscreen) can reduce the chance of a user accidentally deleting a session or other similar entry.

Referring again to FIG. 5 , the user can initiate a new conversation with another person by activating the message creation icon 514 (eg, with a finger tap or other gesture). 19 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for displaying a list of contacts from which a user selects to send an instant message, according to some embodiments. After detecting user selection of the message creation icon (1902), the portable electronic device identifies a set of contacts from the user's address book or equivalent, since it is not known who the new conversation is for (1904). Next, the portable electronic device displays the identified contacts on the touch screen (1908). In some embodiments, in addition to the contact list, the portable electronic device displays a number of icons on the touch screen (1909), such as group contact icons, first and last name icons, alphabetic list icons, cancel icons, and other number icons. These icons are described in more detail below with respect to Figures 8A and 8B. After presenting the contact list and additional icons, the portable electronic device then monitors for user contact with the touch screen (1910).

8A and 8B illustrate example user interfaces for a contact list, according to some embodiments. In some embodiments, user interfaces 800A and 800B include the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

● 402, 404, 406 as above;

A group icon 802, which when activated (e.g., by a finger tap on the icon) initiates the display of groups of contacts;

A first name icon 804 which, when activated (e.g., by a finger tap on the icon), initiates the alphabetical display of the first names of the user's contacts by their names (FIG. 8B);

- Surname icon 806, which when activated (e.g., by a finger tap on the icon) initiates the alphabetical display of the user contacts' last names by theirs (FIG. 8A);

- Alphabet list icon 808, which the user can touch to quickly get to a particular initial in the displayed contact list;

Cancel icon 810, which when activated (e.g., by a finger gesture on the icon) initiates a transition back to the previous UI (e.g., UI 500); and

Other number icon 812, which when activated (e.g., by a finger gesture on the icon) initiates a transition to a UI for entering a phone number (e.g., a phone number not in the user's contacts list) for instant messaging ( For example, UI 900 in FIG. 9).

As described in U.S. Patent Application No. 11/322,547, filed December 23, 2005, entitled "Scrolling List With Floating Adjacent Index Symbols," users can utilize vertical up and/or vertical down gestures on a touchscreen 814 to scroll through the contact list, the entire contents of which application is hereby incorporated by reference.

If the next user contact is this scroll gesture 814 (1912) or a finger gesture (1914) on one of the first name icon 804, middle name icon 806, and letter list icon 808, the portable electronic device modifies the current contact on the display (1920). Although the contact list can be shared by multiple applications on the same portable device (for example, e-mail, telephony, and instant messaging), since the contact list is requested from within the IM application, in this case User selection of names in the contact list will be used for IM traffic. Here, a list of contacts is shown with respect to user activation of message creation icon 514 in IM application 141 .

If the portable electronic device detects a finger gesture on the name or other identifier of a person in the contact list (1916), the portable electronic device displays a message composition area for a message to the selected contact (in FIG. 11 1108), and display the session UI as shown in FIG. 6A. In some embodiments, if there is an existing conversation between the user and the selected person, the portable electronic device merges the new conversation into the existing conversation by displaying a message associated with the existing conversation.

If the portable electronic device detects a user gesture on the cancel icon 810 (1918), the portable electronic device aborts the process of creating a new session and brings back the session list shown in FIG. 5 (1006 of FIG. 10).

If the portable electronic device detects a finger gesture on the other number icon 812 (1919), it typically initiates a new conversation with the person not in the contact list. Accordingly, the portable electronic device may present a new user interface for the user to enter contact information for persons to be used by the new session.

Figure 20 is a flow diagram illustrating a process for initiating a new session with a new phone number in accordance with some embodiments. When detecting user selection of other number icons (2002), the portable electronic device provides a contact information display area (2004) and a contact information writing area (2006) on the touch screen. The contact information can be a phone number or email address for IM services. The contact information display area includes a text box 906 for displaying contact information input by the user. The contact information composing area includes a keyboard 624 through which the user enters such contact information. If the user activates the cancel icon (2012), the portable electronic device aborts the process of creating a new session and returns to the session list UI shown in FIG. 5 . If the user input is a letter or number (2010), the portable electronic device displays it in a text box (2014).

9 illustrates an exemplary user interface for entering a phone number for instant messaging, according to some embodiments. In some embodiments, user interface 900 includes the following elements, or a subset or superset thereof:

● 402, 404, 406, 602 and 624 as above;

Cancel icon 902, which when activated (e.g., by a finger gesture on the icon) initiates a transition back to the previous UI (e.g., UI 800A or UI 800B);

- save icon 904, which when activated (e.g., by a finger gesture on the icon) initiates saving the entered phone number in the instant messaging conversation list (e.g., UI 500), and is displayed for composing messages to be sent to the input The instant messaging UI (e.g., UI 600A) for the phone number of ; and

• Numeric entry box 906 for entering a telephone number using the keypad 624 .

Note that the displayed keyboard depends on the application environment. For example, when numeric input is required or expected, the UI displays a soft keyboard with numbers (eg, 624 ). When letter input is required or expected, the UI displays a soft keyboard with letters (eg, 616 ).

The foregoing description, for purposes of illustration, has been presented with reference to specific embodiments. However, the illustrative discussions above are not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise forms disclosed. Many modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teaching. The embodiment was chosen and described in order to best explain the principles of the invention and its practical application, to thereby enable others skilled in the art to best utilize the invention and various modifications as are suited to the particular use contemplated. kind of embodiment.

Claims (28)

1. A method for displaying instant messages, comprising the following steps: displaying a list of instant message conversations on a touch screen display of the portable electronic device, wherein the respective instant message conversations include a corresponding set of instant messages exchanged between the first person and a corresponding other person; detecting a first scroll gesture comprising a substantially vertical movement of a first contact with the touch screen display while the list of instant messaging conversations is displayed; responding to the first scrolling gesture by scrolling the list of instant messaging conversations according to a direction of the first scrolling gesture, wherein the first scrolling gesture is substantially aligned with the first contact with the touch screen display horizontal position independent; detecting a selection gesture on a particular instant messaging conversation in said list of instant messaging conversations; Responding to the selection gesture by replacing display of the list of instant message conversations with display of the particular instant messaging conversation comprising a chronological sequence between the first person and A set of instant messages exchanged between a single other person; While displaying an instant message in the particular instant messaging session, detecting a second scrolling gesture comprising a substantially vertical movement of a second contact with the touch screen display, wherein the detecting the second scrolling gesture is substantially the same as and the horizontal position of the second contact of the touch screen display is independent; and The second scroll gesture is responded to by scrolling the display of instant messages in the particular instant message session according to the direction of the second scroll gesture. 2. The method according to claim 1 , comprising displaying an instant message sent by said first person to said single other person in alignment on a first side of said touch screen display, and An instant message sent by another person to the first person is displayed aligned on the opposite side of the touch screen display. 3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: One or more time stamps are displayed adjacent to one or more of said instant messages. 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising: displaying instant messages sent by the first person to the single other person in a first color; and Instant messages sent by the single other person to the first person are displayed in a second color, the second color being different than the first color. 5. The method of claim 1, further comprising: displaying the instant message sent by the first of the first person and the single other person left-aligned on the touch screen display; and Instant messages sent by the other of the first person and the single other person are displayed right-aligned on the touch screen display. 6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: Visually animating the movement of the instant message newly sent from the first person to the single other person from the message composition area of the touch screen display to the message display area of the touch screen display. 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising: displaying instant messages exchanged between said first person and said single other person in a message display area; and Displays a text box and the first set of keys in the message composition area. 8. The method of claim 7, further comprising: A symbol is displayed in the text box upon detection of contact with a key of the first set of keys. 9. The method of claim 7, further comprising: Upon detection of contact with a key of the first set of keys, at least a subset of the first set of keys is replaced with a second set of keys. 10. The method of claim 7, further comprising: displaying one or more text input suggestions in the message composition area based on the text entered by the first person; and A text entry suggestion selected by the first person is added to the text box upon detection of a predetermined gesture. 11. The method of claim 7, further comprising: displaying one or more text input suggestions in the message composition area based on the text entered by the first person; and Upon detection of a predetermined gesture, at least a portion of the text in the text box is replaced with a text input suggestion selected by the first person. 12. The method of claim 1, further comprising: When displaying the list of instant messaging conversations: display edit icons on the touchscreen display; upon detection of selection of the edit icon, displaying a delete icon adjacent to each listed session and replacing the edit icon with a done icon; upon detection of selection of one of the delete icons, delete the session adjacent to the selected delete icon; and Upon detection of selection of a done icon, delete the delete icon adjacent to each listed session and replace the done icon with an edit icon. 13. The method of claim 1, further comprising: When displaying the list of instant messaging conversations: display edit icons on the touchscreen display; displaying a delete icon adjacent to each listed session upon detection of selection of the edit icon; upon detection of selection of one of the delete icons, delete the session adjacent to the selected delete icon; and Upon detection of selection of a portion of the touch screen display not occupied by any delete icons, the delete icons adjacent to each listed session are deleted. 14. The method of claim 1, further comprising: When displaying the list of instant messaging conversations: display edit icons on the touch screen display; upon detection of selection of the edit icon, displaying a delete icon adjacent to each listed session and replacing the edit icon with a done icon; When a selection of one of the delete icons is detected, displaying a confirmation icon adjacent to the session adjacent to the selected delete icon; and Upon detection of selection of the confirmation icon, a session adjacent to the selected delete icon is deleted from the touch screen display. 15. A device for displaying instant messages, comprising: means for displaying a list of instant messaging conversations on a touch screen display of a portable electronic device, wherein the respective instant messaging conversations include a corresponding set of instant messages exchanged between the first person and the corresponding another person; means for detecting a first scrolling gesture comprising a substantially vertical movement of a first contact with the touch screen display while displaying the list of instant messaging conversations; means for responding to said first scrolling gesture by scrolling said list of instant messaging conversations according to a direction of said first scrolling gesture, wherein said first scrolling gesture is substantially compatible with said The horizontal position of the first contact is irrelevant; means for detecting a selection gesture on a particular instant messaging session in said list of instant messaging sessions; means for responding to said selection gesture by displaying said particular instant messaging conversation, in chronological order, in place of said display of said list of instant messaging conversations. a set of instant messages exchanged between the first person and a single other person; means for detecting a second scrolling gesture comprising substantially vertical movement of a second contact with said touch screen display while an instant message in said particular instant messaging session is displayed, wherein said detecting the second scrolling gesture substantially independent of the horizontal position of the second contact with the touch screen display; and means for responding to the second scroll gesture by scrolling the display of instant messages in the particular instant message session according to the direction of the second scroll gesture. 16. The apparatus according to claim 15 , comprising means for aligning and displaying an instant message sent by said first person to said single other person on a first side of said touch screen display, and A single instant message sent by the other person to the first person is displayed in alignment on the opposite side of the touch screen display. 17. The device of claim 15, further comprising: means for displaying one or more time stamps adjacent to one or more of said instant messages. 18. The device of claim 15, further comprising: means for displaying an instant message sent by said first person to said single other person in a first color; and means for displaying instant messages sent by said single other person to said first person in a second color, said second color being different from said first color. 19. The device of claim 15, further comprising: means for left-aligned displaying on the touch screen display an instant message sent by the first of said first person and said single other person; and Means for right-aligned displaying on the touch screen display an instant message sent by the other of said first person and said single other person. 20. The device of claim 15, further comprising: Means for visually animating movement of an instant message newly sent from said first person to said single other person from a message composition area of the touch screen display to a message display area of the touch screen display. 21. The device of claim 15, further comprising: means for displaying instant messages exchanged between said first person and said single other person in a message display area; and Means for displaying a text box and the first set of keys in the message composition area. 22. The device of claim 21, further comprising: means for displaying a symbol in said text box upon detection of contact with a key of said first set of keys. 23. The device of claim 21, further comprising: Means for replacing at least a subset of said first set of keys with a second set of keys upon detection of contact with a key of said first set of keys. 24. The device of claim 21, further comprising: means for displaying one or more text entry suggestions in said message composition area based on text entered by said first person; and means for adding a text entry suggestion selected by said first person to said text box upon detection of a predetermined gesture. 25. The device of claim 21, further comprising: means for displaying one or more text entry suggestions in said message composition area based on text entered by said first person; and Means for replacing at least a portion of the text in the text box with a text input suggestion selected by said first person upon detection of a predetermined gesture. 26. The device of claim 15, further comprising: means for displaying an edit icon on the touch screen display when said list of instant messaging conversations is displayed; means for displaying a delete icon adjacent to each listed conversation upon detection of selection of said edit icon when said list of instant messaging conversations is displayed, and replacing said edit icon with a done icon; means for, upon detecting selection of one of the delete icons while displaying said list of instant messaging conversations, deleting a conversation adjacent to said selected delete icon; and Means for deleting the delete icon adjacent to each listed conversation and replacing the done icon with an edit icon upon detection of selection of a done icon while displaying said list of instant messaging conversations. 27. The device of claim 15, further comprising: means for displaying an edit icon on the touch screen display when said list of instant messaging conversations is displayed; means for displaying a delete icon adjacent to each listed conversation upon detection of selection of said edit icon while said list of instant messaging conversations is displayed; means for, upon detecting selection of one of the delete icons while displaying said list of instant messaging conversations, deleting a conversation adjacent to said selected delete icon; and Means for, when displaying said list of instant messaging conversations, upon detecting selection of a portion of the touch screen display not occupied by any deletion icon, deleting a delete icon adjacent to each listed conversation. 28. The device of claim 15, further comprising: means for displaying an edit icon on the touch screen display when said list of instant messaging conversations is displayed; means for displaying a delete icon adjacent to each listed conversation upon detection of selection of said edit icon while displaying said list of instant messaging conversations, and replacing said edit icon with a done icon; means for displaying a confirmation icon adjacent to a conversation adjacent to said selected delete icon upon detection of selection of one of the delete icons while displaying said list of instant messaging conversations; and Means for deleting from the touch screen display a conversation adjacent to said selected delete icon upon detection of selection of said confirmation icon while said list of instant messaging conversations is displayed.

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