Apple Inc.

Sameer Pandya

Erik G De Jong

Steven C Roach

Colin M Ely

Steven P Cardinali

Daniel J Barrett

Michael Benjamin Wittenberg

Tyler S Bushnell

Adam Thomas Clavelle

Mario Martinis

Sherry Tang

Kiran S Pillai

Antonio F Herrera

Erik L Wang

Jayesh Nath

Martin Melcher

Carlo Di Nallo

Zhipeng Zhang

Andrea Ruaro

Tobias J Harrison-Noonan

Xuan Liu

Dakota A Bass

Shang L Tsuei

Jonathan P Ive

Duncan Robert Kerr

Bartley K Andre

Richard P Howarth

Eugene Antony Whang

Peter N Russell-Clarke

Martha Evans Hankey

Rico L Zorkendorfer

Jody R Akana

Jeremy D Bataillou

Julian Hoenig

Shota Aoyagi

Benjamin Andrew Shaffer

Anthony Michael Ashcroft

Mikael M Silvanto

Molly J Anderson

Markus Peter Diebel

Clement Tissandier

Julian Jaede

Marine C Bataille

Mattia Pascolini

Sung-Ho Tan

Daniel William Jarvis

Christopher Matthew Werner

Lucy Elizabeth Browning

Marwan Rammah

Paul Choiniere

Rasamy Phouthavong

Eduardo Jorge Da Costa Bras Lima

Jia Liu

Erik Geddes Pieter De Jong

Zheyu Wang

Daniel J Hiemstra

Peter J Kardassakis

Jingjing Xu

Elizabeth C Porter

Adam J Brinkman

Kyle M Zampaglione

Jacquelynn M Pok

Yiwen Wu

Jean-Pierre Simon Guillou

Dale N Memering

Christopher D Jones

Henry Hung Yang

Makiko K Brzezinski

Ryan C Perkins

David Andrew Doyle

Yi Qiao

Benjamin G Jackson

James G Horiuchi

Zaki Moustafa

Trent J Canales

Tyler S Atura Bushnell

Tyler A Marshall

Patrick J Crowley

James P Landry

Daniela M Deschamps

Baris Ozgen

Peter Kardassakis

Jung Yun Seuh

Junlin Mu

Lei Ma

Steven Colin Roach

An electronic device may have a display mounted in a housing. The display may have a display panel with an array of pixels on a flexible substrate. A display cover layer may overlap the display panel. The flexible substrate may have a protruding portion that forms a tail. The tail may be coupled to a printed circuit on which a display driver integrated circuit and/or other circuitry is mounted. When the display is mounted in the housing, the tail may be bent back on itself to create a bend. The bend may be embedded in a molded polymer member. The molded polymer member may be attached to the housing with adhesive and may directly contact an inner surface of the display cover layer.

Electronic devices with molded display mounting structures

An electronic watch may include a housing defining a side wall having a through-hole and a crown assembly including an actuation member. The actuation member may include a crown shaft extending through the through-hole and having an exterior portion defining an input surface and a crown ring coupled to the exterior portion of the crown shaft and electrically isolated from the crown shaft. The crown assembly may further include an optical encoder component attached to the actuation member and defining a group of optical features. The electronic watch may further include an optical detector configured to detect rotation of the crown assembly by detecting motion of the group of optical features and an electrocardiograph sensor comprising a sensing component. The sensing component may be conductively coupled to the actuation member via a conductive path at least partially defined by the crown shaft.

Crown assembly for an electronic watch

An electronic device, such as a watch, has a crown assembly having a shaft and a user-rotatable crown. The user-rotatable crown may include a conductive cap that is mechanically and electrically coupled to the shaft and functions as an electrode. The conductive cap may be coupled to the shaft using solder or another conductive attachment mechanism. The shaft may electrically couple the conductive cap to a processing unit of the electronic device. One or more additional electrodes may be positioned on the exterior surface of the electronic device. The conductive cap is operable to be contacted by a finger of a user of the electronic device while another electrode is positioned against skin of the user. The processing unit of the electronic device is operable to determine a biological parameter, such as an electrocardiogram, of the user based on voltages at the electrodes.

Conductive cap for watch crown

An electronic device, such as a watch, has an input mechanism, such as a crown, that may receive translational inputs, rotational inputs, and/or touch inputs. Inputs received at the crown may result in changes in operation of the electronic device and/or outputs, such as graphical outputs, provided by the electronic device. In various embodiments, the crown includes a retainer that couples an outer crown body to an inner crown body and secures an isolator between the outer crown body and the inner crown body. The embodiments of the crown described herein provide a simple and robust input mechanism for receiving rotational, translational, and touch inputs as described above, while simplifying part alignment, ensuring consistent rotation, and allowing for efficient manufacturing.

Watch crown having a conductive surface

A portable or wearable electronic device can include a device housing defining an internal volume, and an electronic component disposed in the internal volume. The electronic component can be an input component and can have a component housing. The electronic device can also include an antenna feed assembly disposed in the internal volume. The antenna feed assembly can include a conductive grounding component electrically connected to the component housing and the device housing, and an antenna feed component electrically connected to the grounding component and disposed adjacent to the component housing. The conductive grounding component can surround a first major surface and a second major surface of the component housing.

Electronic device

A wearable electronic device may include a display and a housing. The housing may include a chassis defining a first portion of a rear exterior surface of the wearable electronic device, a first portion of a side exterior surface of the wearable electronic device, and an internal wall. The housing may also include a glass shell defining a front wall positioned over the display and defining a front exterior surface of the wearable electronic device and a side wall extending from the front wall and overlapping the internal wall, the side wall defining a second portion of the side exterior surface of the wearable electronic device. The wearable electronic device may also include a touch sensing system within the housing and configured to detect a touch input applied to the front exterior surface of the wearable electronic device.

Wearable electronic device with glass shell

A display assembly for an electronic device can include a printed circuit board, a display panel, and a support structure affixed to the display panel and disposed between the display panel and the printed circuit board.

A switch module for an electronic device detects translational inputs and defines at least portion of a conductive path from an input surface of the electronic device to a processing unit of the electronic device. The switch module may be a component of a crown assembly for detecting rotational inputs, translational inputs, touch inputs and/or biological signals such as electrocardiogram (ECG) signals. The switch module may include a conductive dome and a friction guard that is positioned between the conductive dome and the actuation member of the crown assembly. The conductive dome and/or the friction guard may define at least a portion of the conductive path from the input surface to the processing unit.

Switch module for electronic crown assembly

An electronic device may have a display mounted in a housing. The display may have a display panel with an array of pixels on a flexible substrate. A display cover layer may overlap the display panel. The flexible substrate may have a protruding portion that forms a tail. When the display is mounted in the housing, the tail may be bent back on itself to create a bend. The bend may be embedded in molded polymer. The device may have structures that help prevent the display cover layer from being compressed inwardly towards the rear of the housing such as frame structures embedded in the molded polymer and/or housing sidewall structures. Optical components and optical waveguides may be embedded within the molded polymer. Mating chamfers on the display cover layer and housing may help seat the display cover layer in the housing.

Electronic devices with molded polymer structures

An electronic device may have a display mounted in a housing. The display may have a pixel array that produces images. A display cover layer may overlap the pixel array. The display cover layer may have a planar central area surrounded by a peripheral edge area with a curved cross-sectional profile. From an on-axis viewing angle, an image on the pixel array is fully viewable through the planar central area and the peripheral edge area. From an off-axis viewing angle, the image is partly viewable through the peripheral edge area and not through the central area. To avoid an undesired color cast in the partly viewable image seen through the peripheral edge area of the display cover layer, the display may be provided with color cast compensation structures such as a guest-host liquid crystal layer that exhibits an anisotropic colored light absorption characteristic, a diffuser layer, and/or other optical structures.

Electronic devices with curved display surfaces

Wearable electronic devices, such as watches, can provide a seal member to form a fluid barrier between an inner chamber therein and outer chambers, as well as an external environment. Components within the sealed inner chamber can be protected from elements from the external environment (e.g., water ingress, etc.). The components outside of the inner chamber can include sensor modules and the like. Such components can be operatively connected to components within the inner chamber, for example, by a flex circuit that extends across the seal member. The component can interact with a watchband when coupled to a watch housing of the watch.

Watch with sealed housing and sensor module

Growing community of inventors

Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Sameer Pandya