Apple to Give Safari Audio Controls?

A new patent filing found by AppleInsider suggests Apple may soon add audio controls to Safari.

A filing published this week shows the Cupertino-based company to be exploring the possibility of adding advanced audio preferences to Safari that will allow users to silence audio signals from some or all websites without interfering with welcomed audio playback coming from other applications running on their Mac or PC.

"When a user browses [a website], various audio signals may be presented in the browser application. These audio signals can be music, advertising jingles, noises, sound effects, speech, etc," Apple explains. "Concurrently, the user may be listening to music from the user's personal music library. In some cases, audio signals from audio sources may interfere with the listening enjoyment of the user."


"In some implementations, if an audio source is encountered for the first time in a browser application, then audio control settings specified by the user for controlling a audio signal from the audio source can be stored in a [database]," Apple says. "Once stored, the user specified audio control settings can be recalled and applied to the audio controls when the audio source is encountered in another session by the browser application."

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