Apple executive says Touch ID built into the screen “was never an option”

Among the diverse (and puts several therein) reviews of iPhone X that popped up on the web from yesterday to today, there is one in particular that brings more information about the device.

I speak of the Matthew Panzarino, of TechCrunch who, in addition to showing opinions about the smartphone, published an interview with Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, Dan Riccio, in which the executive comments on the (im) possibility of a Touch ID built into the iPhone X screen.

At a point in the interview in which Panzarino asked about some late changes in the design of the device, here’s what Riccio said:

I heard some rumor that we couldn’t get Touch ID to work behind the glass, so we had to remove it. As soon as we got the first versions of Face ID and realized its potential, we knew that if we could be successful, we could make the product we wanted to design viable, and so it could be something we could dive into. This considering that it was a better solution. And that’s what we did. So we didn’t waste time on fingerprints ago [do aparelho], through the glass or on the sides, because if we tried these things, which would be last minute changes, they would be a distraction from what we were really trying to achieve, which was a high quality Face ID.

Touch ID concept on iPhone screen

If, on the one hand, the executive’s denial means that we will definitely not see the Touch ID embedded in the screen of the next devices – since that would not be the company’s intention “ever” – the speech sounds quite strange in the face of the strong rumors that we’ve seen in the past.

I mean, do you remember when rumors started to appear? If not, I refresh your memory: they started there in May 2016 and were fanned by the great John Gruber, from the blog Daring Fireball, whose information is usually quite reliable; in the same chat, he also talked about the “infinite screen”.

Since then, several other sources have corroborated both rumors, including the great Ming-Chi Kuo, an analyst at KGI Securities. They even went so far as to say that Apple was “having trouble” trying to achieve the feat of putting a fingerprint sensor behind the screen and that this could delay the launch of the device.

As we know, the infinite screen materialized (or almost), while we saw Face ID take the place of Touch ID in the device’s biometric authentication system. Even after that, Kuo went so far as to say that perhaps the fingerprint sensor wouldn’t die entirely in 2018 if the facial recognition feature “didn’t catch on” (even though, okay, he changed his mind shortly thereafter).

Of course, if something is a “rumor”, there is a high probability that it is a wrong bet (or even something made up); however, after so many successes since in relation to external design and internal components, it is really hard to believe that Apple did not even think about this possibility, as the executive seems to say.

Anyway, what apparently is here to stay is Face ID, which is already being tested by many people and most claim to work very well. We will also publish our impressions here on MacMagazine, as soon as we get our hands on the new device this Friday. ?

via MacRumors