What you need to know
- A new Apple patent has revealed how Apple could one day include an enhanced under-display fingerprint sensor in the iPhone.
A new Apple patent has revealed how Apple could one day include Touch ID under the display of the iPhone.
Published Thursday, the patent is titled 'ENHANCED UNDER-DISPLAY FINGERPRINT SENSING USING ANGLE-FOCUSED NARROW FIELD-OF-VIEW FILTERS and the abstract states:
An apparatus for fingerprint sensing includes a light-emitting layer, an optical layer, a filter layer and a pixelated image sensor. The light-emitting layer is covered by a transparent layer, and can illuminate a surface touching the transparent layer and allows transmission of reflected light from the surface to the optical layer. The optical layer includes a plurality of optical elements. The filter layer includes a number of apertures and spatially processes the reflected light. The pixelated image sensor can sense the spatially processed light. At least one of the optical layer or the filter layer enables an angle-focused FOV filtering of the reflected light.
The basic premise is obvious, an under-display fingerprint sensor could one day be used in the iPhone to integrate Touch ID underneath the display, perhaps signaling a return of the much-loved feature to Apple's flagship smartphone. This patent reveals how the Touch ID sensor could use narrow field-of-view filtering to improve the accuracy and detection of the sensor.
Just yesterday it emerged that Apple was asking iPhone users about their preference between Touch ID and Face ID, hinting the company may be considering returning the feature to the iPhone. There is always the possibility Apple could include Touch ID embedded in the iPhone's power/lock button, as it did with the iPad Air this year.
