Ondrej Holzman The new iPhone starts to be talked about almost as soon as the previous one was introduced. Only now, roughly two months before its introduction, however, is Apple itself giving us the first significant clues, inadvertently through the firmware for the new HomePod speaker.
The developers, who have yet to get the HomePod source code, traditionally examined the obtained materials very thoroughly and came up with very interesting findings.
Steve Troughton-Smith on Twitter confirmed previous reports that the new iPhone will unlock with your face, when he discovered in the code references to the as yet undisclosed BiometricKit and "infrared" display unlocking in it. How soon he pointed out Mark Gurman, infrared should allow face unlocking even in the dark.
Another developer Guilherme Rambo se connected with the phone's face unlock technology being labeled as "Pearl ID", it has been referred to in the media as Face ID until now. However, the discoveries of this iOS developer did not end there. In the HomePod code found also a design drawing of a bezel-less phone, which is most likely the new iPhone 8 (or whatever it will be called).
Drawings, photos and renders and other alleged evidence that this is what the new iPhone should look like have been circulating the Internet for some time, but so far there has been no direct evidence. It's only coming now, and it seems that Apple will really push its new flagship iPhone as far as possible, although it will remain minimal all around.
As expected, Touch ID disappears from the front, at least in the form of a dedicated button, and we can only guess how Apple will solve it in the end. Four variants are mentioned: either Apple can get Touch ID under the display, or put it on the back or in the side button, or remove it completely.
Against the first variant, which would be the most user-friendly, it says that getting such technology under the display is still very technologically demanding and expensive. Samsung didn't succeed in the Galaxy S8, and it's not at all certain whether Apple will be able to do something like this by September. The second option would be logical and the simplest, after all, it was also chosen by Samsung, but from the point of view of the user experience, it does not turn out so well.
The integration of the fingerprint reader into the side button is already there in some other phones, but in the case of the new iPhone, there is no talk of it yet. It seems more and more likely that Apple could completely abandon Touch ID and fully rely on Face ID or Pearl ID. In that case, its face scanning technology would have to be really high level, much higher than the Samsung Galaxy S8.
According to the attached drawing from the HomePod code and renders, which based on the available information created Martin Hajek, however, it looks like there will really be enough space in the front for a classic camera as well as other necessary sensors and technologies. The top part will be the only one where the display will not go all the way to the edge.
So there are still many open questions until September, but a bezel-less iPhone with face unlock technology seems very likely. As well as the fact that it will be a premium and more expensive model, alongside which the more affordable iPhones 7S and 7S Plus will also be introduced.
