Apple has been 'all-in' on iPhone X Face ID replacing Touch ID for over a year - report
Apple has allegedly been planning for Face ID to be a full replacement for Touch ID for well over a year, a new report claims, refuting earlier claims by the supply chain that the removal of the fingerprint technology is a recent decision.
In a response to a Twitter user on Wednesday, Daring Fireball's John Gruber stated that Apple's Face ID has been in the works for some time, and has been considered a replacement candidate for Touch ID for "over a year."
It is not clear where Gruber has obtained his information about Face ID -- but it is clear from the announcement event on Tuesday that Apple has been working on it for some time.
In a follow-up tweet, he specifically refuted rumors from this summer claiming Apple was still considering Touch ID for the iPhone X.
In addition, when those reports began claiming Apple was waiting until the last minute to decide whether or not the technology would be implemented, Gruber explicitly said that Apple had already finalized what sensors the device would have -- but also said that the lack of Touch ID "would be weird."
Apple's Face ID technology introduced in the iPhone X is made up of four components including an infrared camera, a flood illuminator, a dot projector, and the front camera. The combination of sensors generates a 3D map of the face that it compares to the mathematical models of the stored face, utilizing the new A11 Bionic neural engine.
In a response to a Twitter user on Wednesday, Daring Fireball's John Gruber stated that Apple's Face ID has been in the works for some time, and has been considered a replacement candidate for Touch ID for "over a year."
None. My understanding is that Apple has been all-in on Face ID as the replacement for Touch ID for over a year now.
-- John Gruber (@gruber)
It is not clear where Gruber has obtained his information about Face ID -- but it is clear from the announcement event on Tuesday that Apple has been working on it for some time.
In a follow-up tweet, he specifically refuted rumors from this summer claiming Apple was still considering Touch ID for the iPhone X.
In addition, when those reports began claiming Apple was waiting until the last minute to decide whether or not the technology would be implemented, Gruber explicitly said that Apple had already finalized what sensors the device would have -- but also said that the lack of Touch ID "would be weird."
Apple's Face ID technology introduced in the iPhone X is made up of four components including an infrared camera, a flood illuminator, a dot projector, and the front camera. The combination of sensors generates a 3D map of the face that it compares to the mathematical models of the stored face, utilizing the new A11 Bionic neural engine.
Comments
*And* the technologies around FaceID allows a lot more than identification, so it is more a strategic move on a medium/long term plan.
Maurizio
But if you look at how clumsy the gestures are to compensate for removing the home button altogether (instead of adding a virtual button) and these are gestures that have been used and extended for entirely different purposes for years and recently and how clumsy the demo was and think about use cases, then it is pretty apparent, if one is being honest, that this was a concession.
John Gruber might as well be Apple PR, he's just going to say whatever it takes to make Apple save face.
Also you're actually trying to say that Apple sends out people to intimidate him? That's ridiculous.
"Save face"
That's laughable. Apple doesn't need to save face - they never publicly declared they were going that direction. They've mentioned time and time again how much they do that they end up saying no and shelving it. It could very well be that they DID get Touch ID working under the screen but decided not to use it, because they thought Face ID would be a better system especially with the advancement of AR over the passed few years.
Furthermore, patenting something does not mean it will ever become a product. Apple has many patents relating to embedding different sensors into displays and rarely do any see the light of day - embedding a camera and speaker, etc. And buying a specific company does not always mean they want it for a specific product or technology. Sometimes they really want the talent - P.A. Semi was a company that designed PowerPC CPU's... Apple bought them for the talent to develop their Ax series of SoCs.
From a workflow and efficiency of movement FaceID is inferior to TouchID, but it has more cool factor. Having to pick up and look at your phone will always be more than just picking it up..or just touching it.
Which gets back to one of the reflexive criticisms of this tech from the Android crowd, namely that this tech already existed in other phones. Actually, what they were doing was very similar to the facial recognition done in iPhoto/Photos for many years. Using infrared, depth camera and a whole bunch of other machine learning tech is a big leap which makes using this as a secure ID a very big deal. Honestly the only one of Apple's competitors that has the ability to even try to duplicate this is Samsung and they will have to work a while to get the silicon piece of the puzzle down.
And I can believe they would make that decision. I think they had every intention of having TouchID in the glass. But I also think that either they couldn't get it working as well as the Home Button implementation or they realized no one would use FaceID if TouchID was an option...or both. But now that they have gone with just FaceID, there is little chance of going back and adding TouchID in glass. That would be acknowledging a mistake. So, that's where their army of damage control "writers" comes in. Grub leads the pack.