What you need to know
- Apple said it will continue to invest in Face ID in the future.
- Touch ID will also continue to play a role.
- We could see the first iPhone with both biometrics as early as next year.
Apple's Face ID has become a staple of the iPhone and iPad lines, and it's going to continue to play a major part of Apple's future. In an interview with Daily Express, Apple's Vice President of product marketing, Greg Joswiak, said the company will continue to invest in facial recognition.
"We continue to make it better, easier to use and faster — in fact we made it 30 percent faster in iOS 13 which will be shipping this fall," Joswiak said.
When Face ID launched, it blew the competition away thanks to the technology included in its True Depth camera system. The system features everything from a dot projector to a flood illuminator to an infrared camera.
"There's so much important and sophisticated technology inside," Joswiak said.
"Our competitors think they can create something similar with a single camera and that's often what they want to do," Joswiak said. "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."
Although Face ID will continue to play a role in the future, Apple isn't closing the door on Touch ID. Apple said it plans to put Face ID on more devices, coexisting with Touch ID as it does right now.
"Certainly, we'll continue to put [Face ID] on more devices but also Touch ID will continue to have a role — it's a great technology on our iPad lineup and we don't see it going away anytime soon," Joswiak said.
Another thing Apple doesn't see going away anytime soon is the display notch, which has proven divisive since its introduction with the iPhone X. Even with companies moving to pop-up cameras and hole punch alternatives, Apple plans to stick with the notch.
"I would give people credit for trying new things, competition is what makes the world go round and makes us all better but that's not something we see coming anytime soon," Joswiak said.
With planning to use both biometrics, we could see the two options coexist in a way we haven't seen before. Come 2020, rumors suggest Apple will release an iPhone with Face ID and an in-display fingerprint sensor.
