While all Android smartphones, even low-end ones, have an under-screen fingerprint sensor top-of-the-line iPhones only have Face ID, which not everyone likes
Touch ID on iPhone 13? No thanks. At least for the 2021 examples. It seems now certain that, despite persistent rumors that have long circulated in the industry and after several years of absence, in September we will not see the reappearance of the fingerprint reader on the new generation of top of the range iPhone.
To give confirmation was the journalist Bloomberg Mark Gurman, through his weekly newsletter "Power On" that has done so definitely collapse the hopes of those who hoped and was now certain of his return. In fact, it was a long time that circulated such news in the tech sector, thanks to the anticipation dated now 2019 of the well-known analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. For the expert on Apple products, this year we should have touched by hand a model equipped with both biometric sensors used by Cupertino, namely Touch ID and Face ID, the latter used for facial recognition. And, instead, nothing happened.
Touch ID, what will it look like in the future?
In the newsletter, Gurman illustrated an important novelty that would concern the new sensor. What should be involved is the format: no longer the traditional push-button one, already seen and used on older versions, but a sensor invisible from the outside of the iPhone, since it is perfectly integrated under the surface of the display.
A total revolution, then, that would be part of a wave of changes that would also involve Face ID. It is precisely on facial recognition that the company would be focusing, with an integration already seen on some smartphones produced by Samsung and a handful of Android currently on the market. It is a redesign process that would also bring Face ID under the screen and no longer in the upper notch.
Cupertino would already have reduced the space occupied, shrinking by 50% the size of the chip that analyzes the images captured by Face ID and repositioning the audio amplifier to make additional space. It won't be an immediate change, however, as some analysts at Barclays say it won't arrive until 2022 and only after a transition to a punch hole format that will eventually lead to a seamless screen.
Touch ID, when will it return on iPhones
According to Gurman's statements, the return of Touch ID - particularly on the top of the line - will be an obstacle course. Despite the tests to the integrated sensor carried out precisely on flagship phones, this technology could be used exclusively for the basic models, while for the most expensive Apple would have thought directly to the new Face ID.
The other case, emphasizes the journalist, provides instead a differentiation in the technology used for different iPhones. Pro and Pro Max could focus on Face ID under the surface of the screen while, for the others, the choice could fall on the version that we have come to know in recent years.
In the meantime, following the anticipations, for 2021 we can already expect a reduced notch, larger batteries, a screen with 120Hz refresh rate and up to 1TB of storage space in the Pro. This is rounded out by the A15 Bionic chip, which is faster than its predecessor, and new, larger dedicated camera sensors. It could also be the last year of the iPhone Mini, the most disappointing in terms of sales and on which Apple would have decided to stop focusing from 2022.