Apple purportedly wants ‘folded cameras’ with periscope lenses in future iPhones — Apple World Today

Periscope lenses allow for greater optical zoom by bouncing light inside the phone off a mirror before passing it through another smaller lens which can be moved closer and further away from the sensor, amplifying the light even more.

Apple has been granted for periscope lens over the years. For example, in 2015, it was granted a parent for “Mirror Tilt Actuation” (pictured above) for an assembly the includes a folded optics arrangement such that light enters the lens and mirror assembly through a first lens with an optical axis of the first lens orthogonal to the plurality of moveable lens elements. 

And last year the US Patent and Trademark Office granted Apple two patents for a periscope camera lens. The first was a “folded lens system with five refractive lenses” and the second patent was for “three refractive lenses.”