Apple patent filing involves lens mounting structures for ‘Apple Glasses”

Apple has filed for a patent (number 20210325625) for “lens mounting structures for head-mounted devices.” It involves the rumored “Apple Glasses,” an augmented reality/virtual reality head-mounted display (HMD).

About the patent filing

Apple says that HMDs may have optical modules that present images to the user’s left and right eyes. The optical modules may move with respect to each other to accommodate different user interpupillary distances. 

Each optical module may have a lens barrel, a display coupled to the lens barrel that generates an image, and a lens mounted to the lens barrel through which the image is viewable from an eye box.

Summary of the patent filing

Here’s Apple’s abstract of the patent filing “A head-mounted device may have optical modules that present images to the user’s left and right eyes. The optical modules may move with respect to each other to accommodate different user interpupillary distances. Each optical module may have a lens barrel, a display coupled to the lens barrel that generates an image, and a lens mounted to the lens barrel through which the image is viewable from an eye box. 

“The lens may be a multi-element lens formed from molded lens elements such as molded polymer lens elements. A lens element may be provided with protrusions that form lens tabs. The lens tabs may have coplanar lens tab surfaces that mate with corresponding coplanar mounting surfaces in the lens barrel. Alignment marks may be formed on the protrusions and/or other portions of the lens.”

About Apple Glasses

When it comes to Apple Glasses, such a device will arrive in 2022 or 2023, depending on which rumor you believe. It will be a head-mounted display. Or may have a design like “normal” glasses. Or it may be eventually be available in both. The Apple Glasses may or may not have to be tethered to an iPhone to work. Other rumors say that Apple Glasses could have a custom-build Apple chip and a dedicated operating system dubbed “rOS” for “reality operating system.”