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Most people on here are Apple shareholders primarily so are happy for millions of other consumers to be screwed
If you didn’t have patents then the consumer would have much fewer and inferior products to purchase. Patents exist to protect the inventors investment if you don’t do this there will be less inventions and everyone’s life will be poorer.
 
They could have a flat back right now if they weren't so keen on making the iPhone paper thin.
The thinnest iPhone was the 6 and they have gotten thicker since.

Yes, they could make the phones thicker but that's not really what most people want and it would end up making them heavier as well. When you add a case, that would really chub them up. There is a compromise between bulk, weight, and battery life and Apple has a lot of data showing what choices its customers would make.

I'm not sure what the objection to camera bumps is. they are a practical solution to differing constraints for the optics vs the rest of the phone. Since the vast majority of users put their phones in a case, that smooths out the different thicknesses anyway.
 
I’m excited for this. Hopefully it doesn’t get delayed too much since I’m planning on getting my next iPhone in 2024.
 
Optics and laser physicist here with several ACTUAL patents.

this patent claim, like most others, is pathetic, no true innovation anywhere i can see. If they got this patented, it’s all the proof you need to know that the patent law is broken big time.
Periscopes are old, lenses are old, prisms are old, ‚optical‘ image stabilization is old, how on earth can the combination of all be patent worthy. Screw these wannabe innovators who think so!!


these patent lawyers are either incompetent and clueless regarding Cabrera and optical setups OR bribed, pick your favorite. (Or both) 😒


to be fair that's usually what Apple does, they're not usually first to market with things, but when they come in they do it with a vastly more refined product (usually, not always)
Doesn’t mean they can patent literally nothing worth mentioning!
A nice implementation of Knien tech and concepts is not patent worthy.

Yeah, I'm wondering what this does to contrast. The more elements light has to travel through, generally the lower contrast and brightness are.
almost nothing will happen to contest. Broadband anti reflection coating plus possible optical bond to the sensor, also known tech. No human would see the difference!!
It might be that single prism variants are heavily protected by tons of already existing patents.

Using two prisms, as it is unnecessary, may have been the only patent left that was not yet claimed... hence Apple had to make the design more complicated just in order to not have to pay patent royalties to other companies.

But as was said also, this design has some advantages too, e.g. if the sensor is larger than the thickness of the device. The sensor could be too tall to be mounted upright.
There surely can be an advantage of the lenses are anamorphic for instance, then the phones‘ thickness wouldn’t limit the aperture per see. BUT again, nothing worth a patent.

these patent lawyers are either incompetent and clueless regarding Cabrera and optical setups OR bribed, pick your favorite. (Or both) 😒
 
I find it interesting that the patent uses prisms instead of mirrors for the reflections. Does anyone have an educated guess about why?
 
why would you want that? patents literally screw the consumers. ideally, you want no patent to ever exist.

An alternative interpretation is that patents encourage inventors to invest more time/money in innovation, safe in the knowledge that they'll be able to profit from taking that risk with less fear that their investment in inventing new stuff is simply "stolen" by others who didn't bother to invest in inventing it.

More innovation = good; hence patents literally help consumers.

Obviously I realise that's an unfashionable view around these parts ;)
 
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If you didn’t have patents then the consumer would have much fewer and inferior products to purchase. Patents exist to protect the inventors investment if you don’t do this there will be less inventions and everyone’s life will be poorer.

Yeah and if CEOs only got millions in bonuses instead of tens of millions they wouldn’t bother to get out of bed. And if you feed the starving they won’t bother working. And if you heal the sick they’ll just live unhealthily. There is no better way to do things than exactly how we do them right now, except for less tax for big companies.
 
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Watch out Apple, turning the lenses sideways is going to put two of your favorite things - thinner phones and bigger diameter lenses - in direct opposition to each other. You'll hit a point where you can't make the phone thinner because the lenses would have to be smaller in diameter. 😱
It has been several generations since Apple made their phones thinner. the thinnest iPhone was the 6. This trope that Apple is always making their phones thinner does not match the facts.
 
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Given the depth of the phones you'd think the sensor couldn't be that much bigger in this arrangement. It would be good if you could place it diagonally.

this won't generally change sensor sizes in phones. there's still just too limiting of a depth avvailable.

all this is going to do is provide enhanced zoom capabilities. it won't dramatically make the sensors or camera logic better. We've already seen similar periscope technologies in Android devices, and unless you have need for 25x or more zoom, it's a limited use feature.

But like the old addage about camera's goes. the best camera is still the one you have on you
 
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I find it interesting that the patent uses prisms instead of mirrors for the reflections. Does anyone have an educated guess about why?
As I understand:

Mirrors tend to be less efficient.

Mirrors are likely to have more significant thermal stability issues than prisms.
 
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Given the depth of the phones you'd think the sensor couldn't be that much bigger in this arrangement. It would be good if you could place it diagonally.
If you look at the patent the rendering doesn't match. The render should show an additional prism at the bottom of the lens group so the sensor can be flat on the logic board as it normally would be.
 
If you didn’t have patents then the consumer would have much fewer and inferior products to purchase. Patents exist to protect the inventors investment if you don’t do this there will be less inventions and everyone’s life will be poorer.
Patents were originally intended to provide the investor/inventor a limited period of time in which to monopolize that technology.

it was never intended as a permanent, long term monopoly and exclusion. Patents are supposed to expire after 20 year,s But like copyrights in the US, US companies have enough clout to often get exceptions by the government, and abuse those monopolies for as long as possible.

I also think in the world of High Tech. 20 years is too long. Tech patents probably should be more like 7 to 10 years. And they also need to be re-examined to remove patents that are either too vague, or too simple.
 
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They could be designing it for the MacBook and iMac! Would allow for a much better front facing camera
 
But like copyrights in the US,
The duration of copyright has long been a nightmare.

The idea that you have to determine the date of death in order to check whether something is protected or not is mad. People die in all sorts of circumstances in which checking can be difficult - disasters, abroad. Or just disappear with no confirmed date of death. Court proceedings to get someone declared dead can continue for many years. Similarly, there are occasional situations in which someone is declared dead when they are not. (A recent story from France highlighted to extraordinary difficulty of becoming alive again in a legal sense.)

Much of my concern about copyright has nothing to do with personal gain but everything to do with not seeing others gain from things I have done.

Both copyright and patent law continues to need careful attention.
 
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Now, that’s a better reason to upgrade than a ProMotion 120Hz display. Anyone with an iPhone 11/12 Pro would be doing themselves a favor by waiting for that upgrade. In addition to the periscope camera lens and significant camera improvements, you also get a notch-less display and possibly the return of TouchID integrated into the display.
 
I recognize the need for patents, but it does feel like the current system stifles innovation at times.

When companies are forced to over complicate designs just to circumvent patents protecting technology that has existed for over 100 years, it just seems silly.

If aliens landed tomorrow and GIFTED you a manufacturing system to make smart phones based on growing crystals out of recycling carbon emissions, you would still unable to mass produce them because you have to connect to a network.
If the technology has existed for 100 years, it’s not patentable. If someone managed to get a bogus patent on it, then it certainly wouldn’t survive the kind of scrutiny Apple’s legal power would provoke.
why would you want that? patents literally screw the consumers. ideally, you want no patent to ever exist.
No, they don’t. They ensure investment and progress. It’s far easier to copy a technology than to invent it. Without temporary exclusivity there’s be no motivation to do the research because there’d be a band of poachers just waiting for you to finish.

In exchange for that exclusivity, you are required to teach your invention so other inventors can learn from it and thereby contribute to broader progress.

There are certainly problem areas in patent law, but periscope cameras are we’ll outside of those areas.

I want patents to exist because I like new things. Obviously they don’t kill all short term competition, people find ways around them, and in the longer run it keeps the wheels of progress moving. I may not be able to afford the latest inventions while they’re held exclusively, but I’m benefitting from the last generation of patents and the next generation will benefit from ours.
I also think in the world of High Tech. 20 years is too long. Tech patents probably should be more like 7 to 10 years.

Nothing has changed— every generation of patents has defined what is high tech at the moment. It used to be lightbulbs, now it’s mini-LEDs.
 
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Patent Troll litigation activated in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ....
The article clearly states that Apple hada difficult time because of patents already awarded.

There are already about a dozen Android phones that already have periscope lenses so who exactly would be the trolls?
 
First time the iPhone gets dropped, even a foot or two, the periscope lens will likely be broken.

Besides, the best lens in the universe coupled with a tiny sensor equals a crap camera. And there are no camera controls on a smartphone other than on the touchscreen. So other than a few Auto mode photos that will never be award winning, it is still a cracker-jack box toy camera. Albeit it an expensive one.

Meh....
That doesn't happen to phones that already have a periscope lens, why would it happen on an iPhone?
 
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