Earlier this year, The Wall Street Journal published an in-depth report highlighting instances of thieves watching iPhone owners enter their passcode...
Hardware: The components required are thicker than the display side of a MacBook. Someone commented about the Studio Display (and likewise the iMac), but that’s enabling Face ID just for a fraction of Macs (and could potentially limit future design).
Requires additional physical input anyway: On the iPhone, you swipe up to unlock. The Mac could just accept the spacebar as input, but it’s still a secondary action meaning Face ID is “press here instead of touch there”. It also means that for Apple Pay or anything else requiring confirmation, you’d need someway of confirming (click here instead of touch there).
It’s not solving the problem that the iPone had: Face ID on the iPhone enabled the iPhone to get rid of the Home button which greatly increased the amount of the display area. It wouldn’t do that on the Mac. Really the only thing it’s doing is allowing some other physical action (press the space bar or click a confirmation button) instead of touching the power button.
That wouldn’t help with people who already have the lid open nor would it solve the issue of confirmation for Apple Pay and others. It also wouldn’t be a solution for the mini, Studio, PowerMac or iMac.
Further, it doesn’t solve the hardware issue of the component being too thick for the lid nor does it solve the main issue for why the iPhone went with Face ID.
Isn’t the lack of security due to poor security implementation rather than low-quality sensors? I don’t see why Apple can’t just use those same sensors but with their own security system.
Phones with power button fingerprint, short-focus, ultra thin optical or Supersonic under screen detectors existed for a long time. Or they could punch a hole on the display and call it dynamic home.
And I just want iPhones to have Touch ID (they could do it in the power button).
But for Face ID on Macs, I think that’s because the display sides of those aren’t thick enough for Face ID.
Yes it is. This is 100% the reason. There’s nowhere near enough surface area to get a unique finger print.
There are plenty of Android phones with very thin fingerprint scanners on the side… They work well.
Some iPads already use TouchID on the power buttons so it’s definitely something Apple can implement on the phones if they chose to.
Face ID on Macs faces multiple problems:
*wink* to confirm purchase
Opening the lid on MacBooks should be the trigger for Face ID.
That wouldn’t help with people who already have the lid open nor would it solve the issue of confirmation for Apple Pay and others. It also wouldn’t be a solution for the mini, Studio, PowerMac or iMac.
Further, it doesn’t solve the hardware issue of the component being too thick for the lid nor does it solve the main issue for why the iPhone went with Face ID.
My Windows Notebook has Windows Hello with an infrared cam. I will never buy a computer without face unlock.
Windows Hello is quite insecure: https://blackwinghq.com/blog/posts/a-touch-of-pwn-part-i/
Isn’t the lack of security due to poor security implementation rather than low-quality sensors? I don’t see why Apple can’t just use those same sensors but with their own security system.
Phones with power button fingerprint, short-focus, ultra thin optical or Supersonic under screen detectors existed for a long time. Or they could punch a hole on the display and call it dynamic home.
Maybe they could put it in the keyboard