While Apple will expand its range of devices that offer Face ID for biometric security, it will also continue to offer devices that use Touch ID, says an Apple executive.
“Certainly, we’ll continue to put [Face ID] on more devices but also Touch ID will continue to have a role,” Apple’s vice president of Product Marketing, Greg Joswiak said in an interview with the UK’s Daily Express. “It’s a great technology on our iPad lineup and we don’t see it going away anytime soon.”
“Touch ID was the first mainstream biometric security system and customers loved it,” he continued. “It changed the way that people secured their device, because at that time, even though it’s hard to imagine, many didn’t even have a passcode.”
“But we wanted to improve biometric security even further with something more secure and convenient to use and that’s why we came up with Face ID,” he said. “We first shipped Face ID two years ago on the iPhone X and we thought it was even more natural than Touch ID with it unlocking your device with just a glance.”
The Express asked Joswiak why other companies have avoided using face-scanning biometric security, Joswiak said it comes down to the cost.
“This is a pretty costly system,” he says. “Our competitors think they can create something similar with a single camera and that’s often what they want to do. Unfortunately, there’s a reason why this is costly; there’s a reason why it has all these components because security is night and day over someone trying to do this off a 2D image.”
He discussed the “tiny little notch” in the current iPhone’s display.
“It’s good to take a step back and look at the technological beast of that tiny little notch area of your iPhone,” he continues. “There’s so much important and sophisticated technology inside. There’s a speaker, a microphone, an ambient light sensor and a proximity sensor plus the all scanning components of the Face ID system.”
He also indicated that the Face ID notch in the iPhone’s display is here to stay.
“I would give people credit for trying new things,” he said, “competition is what makes the world go round and makes us all better but that’s not something we see coming anytime soon.”
Joswiak didn’t discuss rumors that Apple is developing an in-display Touch ID for use in the 2020 iPhone lineup. However, he did say Face ID will operate 30% faster in iOS 13.
Apple will launch iOS 13 alongside the release of the 2019 iPhone lineup, which will be unveiled tomorrow, Tuesday, September 10.
(Via AppleInsider)