Patent ID: 7426647

Claim:
A method usable for a portable, hand-held electronic device having a single processor that can operate in a low power mode and in a higher power mode relative to the low power mode, the method comprising: when the single processor is operating in the higher power mode, operating a media player application in a full power mode to access a plurality of media files in a storage location, wherein at least a full power mode version of the media player application is usable on a desktop or laptop computer, and wherein the portable, hand-held electronic device is sized to fit on a user's hand; monitoring for an event representative of a transition to the low power mode from the higher power mode of the single processor; if the event is detected, activating a low power media player to operate during the low power mode, wherein the low power media player is separate from the media player application, and wherein the low power media player provides fewer user interface elements than the media player application; transitioning the media player application to operate in an embedded mode, wherein the embedded mode consumes less power than the full power mode, and wherein the embedded mode provides a subset of the functions available in the full power mode; reading at least a portion of a media file, to be played during the low power mode, from the storage location using the low power media player supported by the single processor operating in the low power mode; loading in a memory during the low power mode the portion of the media file read from the storage location using the low power media player supported by the single processor operating in the low power mode; playing the loaded portion of the media file from the memory during the low power mode using the single processor operating in the low power mode, wherein the playing the read portion of the media file is performed by the media player application in embedded mode but is controlled by the low power media player.