iPhone X Facial Recognition Will Not Meet Expectations

Paul Thurrott:

Well, now it’s going with plan C. Which is to seed the press with the bad news that this technology does not work very well. In doing so, it can temper expectations for the product and assure that only its most-forgiving fans will buy an iPhone X, preventing the public embarrassment of rampant complaints.

“Apple quietly told suppliers they could reduce the accuracy of the face-recognition technology to make it easier to manufacture, according to people familiar with the situation,” Bloomberg reported. “A less accurate Face ID will still be far better than the existing Touch ID [but] the company’s decision to downgrade the technology for this model shows how hard it’s becoming to create cutting-edge features that consumers are hungry to try.”

I’m sorry, what? “A less accurate Face ID will still be far better than the existing Touch ID”? That cannot be true. Touch ID is fantastic. Even a full-working Face ID would likely not be as good.

I’m sorry, what?

Nobody outside of Apple has yet publicly tested this technology (until today, when the first YouTube hands-on videos showed up — I wrote these words a few days ago). We know next to nothing how it will realistically function in the real world. Apple has denied Bloomberg’s report, which is a rare step for them. I see this as Bloomberg getting the story either completely wrong, or completely right. However, until we get to test and compare it to Touch ID, we have essentially no viable information to use. Bloomberg could just as well be talking about the system that Apple showed off at the last keynote — the allegedly “downgraded” one. Or not.

Both Bloomberg’s and Paul’s articles are just clickbait at this point, making assumptions which are pure conjecture and speculation.