No longer do you need to remember a pattern or numeric code with smartphones that unlock with just a fingerprint, but Apple Inc. is working on a feature that will allow you to open your phone with your face.
Let’s clarify: You do not smash your face on your phone or peck out the pattern with your nose. The redesigned iPhone, expected to go on sale later this year, is working on a new security system powered by a 3-D sensor, Bloomberg reported.
Users will be able to log in, authenticate payments and launch secure apps by scanning their face. The new feature can scan a user’s face and unlock the iPhone “within a few hundred milliseconds,” according to the report, even if the phone is lying flat on a table.
Because technology, right?
Sources also told Bloomberg that Apple is testing out eye-scanning technology to augment the system.
The face-scanning technology would replace the Touch ID fingerprint scanner, which was introduced on the iPhone 5s in 2013.
Apple declined to comment and the sources asked not to be identified as discussing tech that is still in development, Bloomberg reported.
Apple’s iPhone is a little tardy to the party in terms of 3-D scanning technology. The Samsung Galaxy S8’s biometric security already uses facial recognition.
The S8 has a front-facing camera and, using your facial features, allows the device to unlock if you (and only you) are in front of it.
Bloomberg addressed the other forms of biometric authentication:
In its latest phones, Samsung included iris scanners that let users unlock their phones and make payments by scanning their eyes. Samsung’s feature on its Galaxy S8 smartphone launched to poor reviews as users were able to trick the sensor with printed photo copies of a person’s eyes. Apple’s sensor has 3-D depth perception, which means the system is less likely to be duped by 2-D pictures. Analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and other firms said earlier this year that a 3-D sensor would likely be included in the next iPhone.
