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Apple To Ditch Touch ID Altogether For All of Next Year's iPhones (macrumors.com)
Earlier this week, a report said that Apple is planning to equip next year's iPad Pro with the hardware necessary for Face ID. Now, according to KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, it appears the company is taking that one step further with its 2018 iPhones. All of the iPhones Apple plans to produce next year will reportedly abandon the Touch ID fingerprint sensor in favor of facial recognition. Mac Rumors reports: According to Kuo, Apple will embrace Face ID as its authentication method for a competitive advantage over Android smartphones. Kuo has previously said that it could take years for Android smartphone manufacturers to produce technology that can match the TrueDepth camera and the Face ID feature coming in the iPhone X. Face ID, says Kuo, will continue to be a major selling point of the new iPhone models in 2018, with Apple planning to capitalize on its lead in 3D sensing design and production. Kuo's prediction suggests that all upcoming 2018 iPhones will feature a full-screen design with minimal bezels like the iPhone X, meaning no additional models with the iPhone 8/iPhone 8 Plus design would be produced. That would spell the end of the line for Touch ID in the iPhone, which has been available as a biometric authentication option since 2013.
Apple fans will buy anything, with or a headphone jack, with or without a fingerprint scanner, with or without whatever.
High Fives Everyone!
46137
To be fair, you'd probably have gloves on under similar circumstances.
Thanks, but I'll pass. This is just not a feature I want. Guess it's back to passcodes if I ever buy another iPhone. But to be completely honest, my 6 is fine for my needs, and to me the 7, 8, or X do nothing above and beyond the 6 that makes an upgrade compelling anyway.
eyeballs were easier. whatever.
I unlock my phone multiple times per day in situations where my face wouldn't be visible to the face id sensor. Not only that even in situations where face id WOULD work a fingerprint sensor is faster anyway, because your finger can have unlocked the phone before you've even bought it up to your face from your pocket. This is apple hurting usability to serve design once again. When the technology to have fingerprint scanners under the screen is finally ready they will look like fools.
This is discriminatory to all those without a face.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
How much did the FBI pay for this feature?
Probably depends on if you were wearing them while training it.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
Apple's uses a 3D scan of your face. The android one could be fooled with a photograph.
Touch, face, whatever. They are all insecure and able to be spoofed. Two factor is still the way to go, but most people do not have the patience for it.
Even near-perfect facial recognition will fail with a large enough N and N(*(N-1) comparisons when you expect N (:-))
davecb@spamcop.net
It's easier to take off gloves for a quick auth than it is a hat, scarf, sunglasses, etc.
Except Android's had the capability (in a weaker form, to be fair) since 2011.
I don't think you know what gender reassignment surgery does. Hint: Apple does not support shoving your phone down your pants to unlock it.
It's a hell of a lot easier to pull off a glove for touch-id than to remove scarves/ski-goggles/motorcycle helmet/etc. for face recognition. And you probably have to pull off a glove anyway, to punch in your pin code.
It's a step backward in functionality/simplicity for certain use cases. Same as the missing headphone jack.
Apple is probably just reading the center of the bell curve for what drives people to purchase their products, and form seems to rate higher than function for most of their base. Apple has some great products, but their current focus on removing functionality/ports/etc.in the pursuit of fashion is pretty off-putting.
As a current owner of an iPhone 6, I have absolutely NO intention of ever upgrading to an iPhone X. I like the touchId but, more importantly, I like an actual physical BUTTON on the 6. I don't even like the recessed divot for the 7 or the 8 as there's no substitute for it when wearing gloves (and no, haptic feedback is NOT a substitute).
I don't even understand how Tim thinks that Face ID is unique to the iPhone when Microsoft already offers it for their Surface Pros and, surely, Google can buy the tech if need be.
This is nothing more than Tech CEO masturbation to keep the churn rate going. Cook is out of ideas and out of his depth. Apple is stagnating and no longer innovating while ignoring core infrastructure and support. For example I had to help out a friend do an upgrade from their iPhone 5 to iPhone 7 after iOS 11 came out. Guess what, iTunes backup will NOT let you update because the iOS' are different - but if you go through the iCloud update you can. Why? Because that's why. Why are the backup scenarios different between the iCloud and iTunes?
But hey, Tim's brought us animoji, so uh, there's that.
I can't see this being a very positive thing, and being someone who's uncomfortable with the premise of FaceID, I guess I'll just stay with whatever platform offers me different options. When manufacturers stop caring about what the consumers need so that they can keep pushing exclusive features in order to beat the competition, (to me at least) something's clearly wrong; it also bears mentioning that there may well be a good number of us who won't want to be a part of this situation and will refuse to support them by purchasing such products.
Just place black electrical tape over the front camera.
For those of us who are not into selfies or video chatting. The rear camera is still available for taking pictures/videos.
I still do not understand why manufactures do not place physical shutters over camera, considering all of the 3 letter agencies and criminals that target our devices.
Apparently not just any 3D scan, but infrared, so it's a thermal image. Even with 2 photos (for the left and right cameras) and a double-sided mirror, you can't fake authentication because paper under infrared doesn't look like a person. Are there any infrared printers?
"Apple will embrace Face ID as its authentication method for a competitive advantage over Android smartphones"
seems a bit premature to speak of a "competitive advantage" when the feature is not even widely embraced as yet.
You ought to see a scientist so they can study your infravision.
"Apple will embrace Face ID as its authentication method for a competitive advantage over Android smartphones"
seems a bit premature to speak of a "competitive advantage" when the feature is not even widely embraced as yet.
It's not even released yet.
That seems like wishful thinking. Android has had both face-based biometrics and depth cameras for a few years, they just haven't been very popular. In addition, Google probably has the best machine learning groups in the world right now, so even if they needed to catch up, they could do so rapidly.
Not hotdog
I flat out DO NOT want my device watching my face all the time. More than anything else, the technology will be used to see if you are actually looking at an ad, or looking away and pause it. In the very near future you will HAVE to look at the ad, or you dont go forward. Did i mention they will be constantly analyzing the emotional state on your face too?
Good-bye
It's easier to take off gloves for a quick auth than it is a hat, scarf, sunglasses, etc.
With modern face recognition algorithms hats are not much of an issue unless you extend 'hat' to include ski masks and riot police helmets. Sunglasses can be an issue, but worst case you can train the face ID to recognise your face with and without glasses just like you can program multiple fingers into your thumbprint sensor or even the same finger multiple times. As for scarves, how hard is it to pull down your scarf for a sec to access your phone? .. or even take off your shades and pull down your scarf? ... even that probably takes less time than it takes to pull off your glove and put it back on.
You mean their picture unlock where you can unlock the phone using a photograph? Not quite the same, is it?
Apple's uses a 3D scan of your face. The android one could be fooled with a photograph.
The HTC phone couldn't be fooled by a photograph. It used the camera sensor and a laser depth sensor (at least two years ago). And the LG phone couldn't be fooled by a photograph, it used a normal camera sensor plus an infrared one, that's how it could determine the depth (and that was at least three years ago).
And right now, Apple is paying $23 per iPhone to Sony for its two camera sensors: a normal low light one and an infrared one. And no, Sony didn't even give its best camera sensors to the iPhone. If you want the latest Sony camera, you'll have to purchase a Sony Xperia XZ phone which can shoot video at 960fps.
Please bookmark this post, three years from now, the latest iPhone will eventually be able to shoot at 960 fps thanks to Sony (assuming Apples pays them enough licensing fees), and some people will be raving about how the iPhone is pioneering all this crazy advanced technology that Android can't even come close to.
Also, don't believe every clickbait rumor you read. There is no way the iPhone will get rid of Touch ID. It may call it something else and it may improve on the technology by embedding into the glass itself. But there is no way it will get rid of it completely. Seriously, can you even imagine people unlocking their phone in a dark movie theater, or in a dark restroom? Or in a crowded subway? Or while driving? Even without Steve Jobs, Apple designers and Apple usability testers are not completely stupid.
I wouldn't call it their "current focus", it's been their focus for almost the entire history of the company. It's just gotten especially egregious now that their customers more closely resemble Kim Kardashian than computer nerds, like they did in the 70s through the 90s.
I don't get why they won't just add Voice ID. You say your password clearly out loud, the phone does speech recognition and checks the password, you're in. Seems about as safe as using your face as a password.
I just got the iPhone 8 (my daughter is old enough to need a phone so she got my old phone).
The touch ID on the 8 is finally good enough that it doesn't slow down usability.
My hope is Apple perfects finger scanning off of the single piece of glass on the front of the phone and uses that as an option in future iPhones. Or, of course, continue the same style as the iPhone 8.
Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
I seriously don't see the problem here. With TouchID, you have the option of putting in the PIN code. Why would they remove that with a fancy face ID thing? It's still there. Regardless of if you're all bundled up for winter, just do what the other guy said - take the gloves off that you were going to take off anyway and tap in your PIN. Regardless of whatever phone you are using, Apple or otherwise, you were going to have to do that anyway.
So what's the problem again?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
If you happen to be in such an environment, but you can still take off your gloves, then you can just use your passcode to authenticate. Everyone is different, but for me it's much more likely that my hands are wet, making touch ID fail while face ID still works just fine.
Apple will embrace Face ID as its authentication method for a competitive advantage over Android smartphones.
We'll see how much of a competitive advantage that is. Certainly, it is an advantage -- but I suspect it's a pretty small one.
My gloves have conductive fingertips. I can use my phone without taking them off.
I can't wait till the darkened theater starts lighting up with the people's phones lighting up their face so they can log in.
Ummm.. isn't that happening anyway? No matter how you're unlocking your phone, it's lighting up in the dark. How else are you going to read the screen?
So now seems like a good time to remember Bruce Schneier's interview titled Complexity the Worst Enemy of Security.
Indeed, thank you for reminding us of this.
I'm a little torn on the security issue -- most of my professional work has been around security for years now, and I've seen enough impressive-looking security systems fail completely because of this.
I remember years ago, when relatively affordable fingerprint scanners were first hitting the market, I worked on a product that was, essentially, an API layer so that software could use scanners but not be tied to specific hardware. I was playing with the two dozen most popular scanners at the time, and discovered that with 20 of them, you could guarantee a false positive simply by completely covering the scanner window with your thumb. Oddly, the four that weren't so brain-dead were the cheapest ones.
This sort of thing concerns me greatly, particularly with new complex systems. I don't know what it is, but I'd bet money that Face ID has some equally simple way to defeat it. It's too new and complex not to.
However, you tend to trade off security and convenience -- and that's not only legitimate, it's unavoidable. There's no such thing as perfect security, and there's no such thing as total convenience, so you are always choosing some point between those two extremes.
If you really have information that is extremely sensitive on your phone, none of the stock defenses are sufficient anyway. You'd be separately encrypting the data and keeping the key off the phone, have special locking software that lets you enter a "panic code" instead of your normal credential to wipe the phone, etc.
I think a good argument can be made that the correct amount of security is not always "maximum". It's better to recognize that a compromise is inevitably and always being made, and to choose the nature of that compromise according to circumstances.
I'd say that Apple is laying the foundation for the next several years of smart phones. iPhone X will be the best smartphone ever. Certainly, the competition is now working to copy it. The only complaint I have is the overall price. This is just Apples way of nudging us toward the future.
I don't think you live where the air hurts your face.
If, by "catch up to iOS next year", you mean "have had features for several years that iOS will get next year", sure. But even at that, Android development hasn't stopped and there will be new features next year that iOS won't get for quite some time.
Of course, the pendulum swings both ways; there are iOS features that Android will literally never have. Mostly because Android users don't want them.
As for using depth sensors for face unlocking, well, HTC and LG have both done so previously. The features flopped as nobody uses face unlock.
But it'll be so much better when Apple does it.
Right?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Not for finger print identification you can't
So Apple has copied Windows Hello. Now that Microsoft is out of the phone business, I suspect they will be happy to license it to Android phone makers if the buyers want it.
This could be a problem in certain parts of the Arab world. It would mean women out in public, wearing a face covering, would be unable to unlock their Apple phone.
Bit of a loss of market share there, you'd think.
Of course this also applies to people wearing, say, motorcycle helmets. Definitely a crowd you don't want to annoy.
"Cats like plain crisps"
That very well defeats the point of having a quick method of authentication, unless you like using short passwords to encrypt your data (bad idea for security.) Personally, I don't like the thought of face recognition because somebody could wake my phone just by putting it in front of my face. Though I don't like Apple's fingerprint implementation either (not only is it slow, but the fingerprint sensor is smooth and I can clearly see it when I shine light on it at an angle.) I like Google's Nexus implementation because I can comfortably open the phone with a different finger than I use the screen with, and furthermore, the fingerprint sensor isn't glossy and my prints don't ever seem to be visible.
If somebody physically forced me to use my finger to unlock my Nexus, they'd have to make a few guesses as to which finger it is, by which time they'd probably trigger a password lock.
That is the correct question to ask....what do you think they are going to do with everyone's facial image?
Identity Theft? .
NSA, CIA, FBI, Homeland Security, Law Enforcement
Profiling (race, culture, color, religious preference, freckles)
not pay us for the use of our likeness, i.e. Looker
. .
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