Many of us dislike those repetitive loops of cheesy music that play when we're put on hold with customer service. And when friends put us on hold during personal phone calls, all we get is silence. Luckily, Apple may have a happy medium in the works.
The Cupertino, Calif. company was awarded a United States patent Tuesday that would let users share "personal content," via a visual menu, with the person they place on hold. This includes "music, videos, photos, books, periodicals, status updates, calendar information, hold time information, pre-recorded messages and location information," according to the patent claims.
With this feature, users would reportedly have to activate "on-hold sharing," and customize what they'd want to share with whom. When a caller is placed on hold, he or she will see the visual menu, and can choose to view whatever a user has shared.
It's unclear whether Apple plans to use this patent, since it was originally filed back in 2011, according to AppleInsider. What's more, the on-hold feature was not said to be part of the company's upcoming iOS 7 release.
There's also no word on how a feature like this would work on carriers such as Verizon and Sprint, which don't allow data usage during a voice call. AT&T and T-Mobile, on the other hand, do allow it.
In its report, CNET raised a potential hitch: Users could drain their own data allowance -- as well as that of their caller's -- if bandwidth-heavy content is shared (e.g. videos).
Do you find this feature useful or gimmicky? Discuss in the comments, below.