Apple wants to put Face ID everywhere, that’s why

Anymore than Touch ID, Apple is in love with Face ID and that's why sooner or later, according to Mark Gurman of Bloomberg, it will be in every product in the range

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic with its masks has shown the limits of systems based on secure unlocking of devices through facial recognition, such as Apple's Face ID, it seems that Cupertino wants to insist on this security system. Mark Gurman of Bloomberg is convinced of this, and has addressed the issue in his newsletter Power On.

The journalist, who seems to know well Apple's environment and moves, says that according to him it's only a matter of time before Face ID is everywhere, and if the company isn't bringing it into any device right now it's only because it's waiting for the costs of its implementation to be reduced. Gurman's statements are backed up by some code and references unearthed on macOS Big Sur beta (or maybe it's the other way around, i.e. the statements come from the codes) that somehow certify how Apple is working on its OS so that fixed and portable machines are ready to receive and process the secure unlocking technology via facial recognition.

Touch ID holds up for now because it's cheap

"I think the company's ultimate goal is to implement Face ID in all major devices," explains Gurman. "If it were possible, Apple would have eliminated Touch ID by now, but they had to desist for a few reasons. In fact, on iPhone SE and non-pro iPad, Touch ID allows to keep costs low without sacrificing security, while on MacBooks the displays are too thin to integrate the necessary sensors".

According to Gurman, the final solution for Apple would be the integration of one or more cameras under the screen, which would be the perfect solution to differentiate the most expensive products from the others through the elimination of the notch, or the notch, depending on how you call it. Not a simple operation to integrate under the display all the systems that make Face ID a very secure system and not very fallible, so comfortable to use (masks permitting).

The only enemy of Face ID is time

It will take time to get to this point, so according to another well-informed as the well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo meanwhile for 2022 Apple would be ready to offer iPhone a solution that provides one or more holes in the display, similar to what is now proposed by anyone in the Android landscape, such as OnePlus Nord 2 or Samsung Galaxy S21.

Time, in short, is the key, and Gurman knows it well. "That's the direction Apple is headed, so it won't be this year but I expect Face ID to arrive on Macs within a few years, just as I expect that within the same time frame all iPhones and iPads in Apple's lineup will have adopted Face ID. Facial recognition technology offers Apple two main opportunities: security and augmented reality. Touch ID, whether cost-effective or not, only covers the first point."