While it’s a little early to be trusting rumours and speculations, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, backed by a strong track record of Apple hardware forecasts, revealed that the American tech giant might ditch the much-loved Touch ID in favour of the yet-to-be-proven Face ID in all future iPhone models.
Since users haven’t even had the chance to try out the new security feature yet, (The anniversary edition iPhone doesn’t arrive until November!) Apple seems a little too ambitious in pre-deciding abandoning the much-loved fingerprint scanner. Don’t you think?
The touch ID first featured in 2013 on iPhone 5S and it became an instant hit and, in fact, more competitors copied the feature by introducing their versions of the finger print sensors. Now, Apple is looking to go ahead of the pack again by moving the a new facial recognition based technology.
Kuo earlier hedged that Apple would wait for customer response before completely ditching the fingerprint sensor, but the surge in demand and excitement for the anniversary edition iPhone X might have made the company (over)confident in its decision. The Apple analyst believes that TrueDepth and the camera system behind the Face ID will be “key selling point” for the next-gen iPhones.
Kuo also said “We believe this change will allow all new models to realize a competitive advantage via differentiation, on the back of an integrated user experience of full-screen design and TrueDepth Camera/Facial recognition/Face ID/AR applications,”
Apple’s decision to scrap the fingerprint scanner from the future iphones might be a controversial one, for few reasons:
– The company seems to have missed out on scenarios where putting your phone in front of your face to unlock, might not be as subtle as a touch ID. Remember the days when you could unlock your iPhone during those boring meetings? Well, try doing that with the facial scanner now!
– Though Apple has promised privacy to its customers, some how I am not so keen on providing a detailed 3D replica of my face. Maybe my thoughts will change will time.
– Biometric scanners usually work well in tangent, so swapping one for another is not only cruel but does little to improve security. Imagine, all a thief needs is your face to unlock your phone. Or what if I’ve got an evil twin sibling?
While we are still unsure of Apple’s wide-scale adoption of Face ID, the facial scanning tech is still believed to be a bottleneck for the company. But if the speculations and rumours turn out to be true, we might’ve seen the last of touch ID in iPhones with iPhone 8 and 8 Plus.
