Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman has shared his thoughts on Face ID coming to the Mac, saying in this week’s Power On newsletter that he believes within the next “couple of years,” all iPhones and iPads will transition to Face ID, and so will some Macs.
Face ID launched in 2017 with the iPhone X before coming to the iPad the following year with the third-generation iPad Pro. Since then, rumors have speculated about how Face ID could be used on the Mac, allowing users to unlock their machine, make purchases using Apple Pay, and unlock secure files simply by scanning their face.
In today’s newsletter, Gurman says he believes Apple’s vision is to shift all of its products to use Face ID, but the company is facing two major obstacles in moving away from the electronic fingerprint recognition feature, namely the price difference between Touch ID and Face ID components, and the challenge of integrating the necessary depth sensor into the thin display of Apple’s line of Macs.
It won’t happen this year, but I’d bet Face ID on the Mac is coming within a couple of years. I expect all iPhones and iPads to transition to Face ID within that timeframe, too. Eventually, a camera embedded in the screen would help differentiate Apple’s pricier devices by eliminating the notch at the top. The facial recognition sensor gives Apple two central features: security and augmented reality. Touch ID, more convenient or not, only provides the former.
Bloomberg reported earlier in the year that Apple has developed the underlying technology to bring Face ID to the Mac, claiming at the time that the feature had initially been earmarked to launch with the redesigned M1 iMac launched earlier this year, noting at the time development had been paused, pushing the launch of a Face ID Mac back later than originally intended.
Last year, code within Apple’s macOS Big Sur developer beta hinted that Face ID for Mac was in the works, with code referencing a “PearlCamera” function on the Mac, a big hint that Face ID-equipped machines were in development as “Pearl” was Apple’s development name for Face ID during the production of the iPhone X, with “FaceDetect” and “BioCapture” also referenced in the beta.