Cellular telephone with audio recording subsystem

DETAILED DESCRIPTION As described below, the invention may be used to particular advantage in connection with a cellular telephone and may be implemented using conventional components of the type commonly used in advanced cellular phone systems.
The makeup and organization of these components is illustrated in FIG.
1 of the drawings and consists of a microprocessor 101 that executes routines initiated by the operator's manipulation of a keypad 103.
Pressing a given key on the keypad 103 initiates a routine defined by a stored program in the program memory 105.
The cellular phone further includes a display 107 that typically takes the form of a small, backlit LCD panel.
The panel may be used to display a menu of items that may be selected by the user using "soft keys" seen at 109 that are visually associated with the displayed menu items.
U.
S.
Pat.
No.
5,737,394 entitled "Portable telephone apparatus having a plurality of selectable functions activated by the use of dedicated and/or soft keys" describes the manner in which both the dedicated keys of a keypad and soft keys may be used in combination to implement a menu driven control arrangement for a cellular telephone.
Alternatively, as will be described in more detail in connection with FIGS.
2-3 of the drawings, the functions performed may be displayed as a list of options and cursor keys may be used to invoke selected functions and submenu's identified on the display 107.
The cellular telephone further includes a microphone 121 for capturing spoken voice signals from the operator, a speaker or earpiece 123 for delivering audible sounds to the operator, and a cellular transceiver 125 for sending and receiving radio frequency transmissions to and from the cellular telephone system via the antenna 127.
The microprocessor 105 includes analog-to-digital conversion means for converting analog voice signals from the microphone 121 into digital form for storage in a data memory 131.
In addition, using a text-editing program stored in program memory 105, the keypad 103 may be used to compose text messages, which are stored as character data in the data memory 131