For years Apple’s iPhone range (other than the iPhone SE 2020) has done without fingerprint scanners, relying instead on Face ID, but it’s looking like Apple might bring the fingerprint scanner back for the iPhone 13.
That’s something we’ve heard previously, and now most recently The Wall Street Journal has claimed that two former Apple employees have said the company “has been working on in-screen fingerprint technology and has considered including both Touch ID and Face ID on the same device.”
So this wouldn’t be a return to the home button-based Touch ID fingerprint scanners of old, it would be a modern in-screen one like many Android phones now have. That too we’ve heard before, and according to this latest report it would be in addition to Face ID.
The best of both worlds
Having both makes some sense. Face ID is one of the best takes on facial recognition you’ll find on a phone, and it’s a feature that plenty of people will probably want to keep using. But it’s also imperfect. Its reliance on seeing your face means it doesn’t work as well in the dark, or if you’re wearing a mask or sunglasses. At those times, a fingerprint scanner would be a lot more convenient.
So will the iPhone 13 range really get both of these biometric security features? Maybe. Bloomberg also claimed back in January that the feature was in testing, so there’s no shortage of evidence for it. But so far most of the evidence simply points to Apple testing or considering the idea, rather than being committed to it.
Smartphone companies often develop multiple different prototype devices and test all sorts of technologies, not all of which ever get released, as demonstrated by the masses of promising patents that aren’t yet products.
So Apple might decide against an in-screen fingerprint scanner, or delay it to a future year, especially as it’s also rumored that this year’s iPhone might be called the iPhone 12S – so named in part because it’s said to be a small upgrade, and this doesn’t sound like a small change to us.
We’re still a long way off the likely September launch of the iPhone 13 though, so there’s plenty of time for more rumors to roll in pointing one way or the other. Hopefully we’ll have a clearer idea of what Apple’s planning in the coming weeks and months.
Via 9to5Mac
