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Apple Has 'Just Weeks' to Solve iPhone 8 Touch ID Dilemma
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Apple could also sell a rubber pipi and charge $1199 and people will still buy it!
The customers can decide what Apple charges for a product. If people stop buying, then Apple will do something about that price!
When people stop preferring iOS to Android, they will stop buying it. They can produce crappy hardware all they want, but that will never be the primary factor.
But then Apple has always had a history of brinkmanship on their release dates. Steve Jobs partly got his reputation for the famous Apple "reality distortion field" by covering for missed deadlines, and "uncooked, or not fully baked" release products. Even Tim Cook battled this with the early Apple Maps app.... No I think the faithful will wait, and "if they build it, they will come."
For all the rumors we've seen recently surrounding Apple's upcoming "iPhone 8", one of the most inconsistent remains the fate of its Touch ID fingerprint recognition technology in the redesigned flagship device, which is expected to launch in September.
In late May, supply chain sources suggested that Apple had overcome technical hurdles and that the OLED iPhone will have Touch ID integrated into the display. However, according to a report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo earlier this month, Apple plans to replace Touch ID in the iPhone 8 with a facial recognition security system - a prediction echoed by both JP Morgan analyst Rod Hall and Bloomberg.
In the latest throw of the dice, a report from investment publication Barron's concludes that Apple is still struggling to put a fingerprint sensor under the glass of its next iPhone, and that the company has "just a couple of weeks" to solve the matter before its earnings estimates are at risk.
According to KeyBanc Capital Markets analyst Andy Hargreaves, who contributed to the report, Apple has until August to either place orders for chips to run a fingerprint sensor, or miss that window and not have a fingerprint ID at all, or delay more significantly the release of the iPhone.Hargreaves considers the possibility that Apple will replace Touch ID with facial recognition "increasingly likely" as time passes, but "far from ideal". Echoing the thoughts of many observers, Hargreaves goes on to highlight the challenges a supposed replacement facial recognition security system would need to overcome to meet the standard of existing Touch ID, particularly with regard to authenticating Apple Pay.
Hargreaves concludes that if Apple thinks facial recognition isn't sufficient by itself for login and authentication, then a delay in the retail availability of the OLED iPhone is "very unlikely, but possible". But while the analyst believes a delay up until mid-November would not have an impact on investor expectations for the cycle, anything beyond that timeframe could have negative repercussions.
Alleged leaked 'iPhone 8' glass back panel via Weibo
Meanwhile, alleged leaks continue to trickle out into the social media sphere, the most recent coming today via Chinese microblogging service Weibo claiming to show an "iPhone 8" production glass panel back that has no cutout for a Touch ID fingerprint sensor. Early rumors suggested Apple would relocate the sensor to the rear of the handset, similar to the Samsung Galaxy S8.
Apple is thought to have incorporated 3D sensing technology in the forward-facing camera of its "iPhone 8", which may perform a function in the purported facial scanning feature. Alongside the redesigned OLED iPhone, Apple is also expected to announce incremental updates to the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.
Article Link: Apple Has 'Just Weeks' to Solve iPhone 8 Touch ID Dilemma
ALL of the "reporting" on delays of the technology point towards Qualcomm's implementation, citing that as evidence that Apple is somehow behind schedule because of it.
What rumors are you referring to? I ask because all I've seen out of the tech journalism world is what I just wrote.
[...]expected to launch in September.
[...]In the latest throw of the dice,[...]
Article Link: Apple Has 'Just Weeks' to Solve iPhone 8 Touch ID Dilemma
SO, for an unannounced product, Apple is expected to deliver or announce in September, the prognosticators set a deadline with gloom and doom if it isn't met? Apple should just delay the next iPhone until October and call the new model "the iPhone" just to annoy them. I can predict the cycle. Apple will release a new phone model sometime in the next few months. It will likely have touch ID or something even better. It will have incremental / evolutionary improvements in speed and storage capacity and may boost RAM as well. It will introduce a few features that may be revolutionary. Each feature will be pointed out as already existing in some other product, even if Apple patented it and the other folks rushed to market. No other phone will have all the features (some pundits will discard features they say are unimportant) at any significant discount over the next Apple cell phone. Six months later audits will say the next iPhone is behind the times, even though they know Apple put the features there first and has a roughly 12 moth cycle. Other pundits will decry that this is the last Apple phone and that all innovation is gone from Apple.
Regardless of the pundits, Apple will sell a lot of iPhones. Apple will become a trillion dollar company.
It's part of the Apple drama...Its free advertising to take the deep breath, and hold it.
I hope Apple learned from Samsung’s misadventures last year. Get it right, don’t rush it to meet a self imposed deadline if it’s not ready for prime time.
Two months away from the rumored unveiling, I'd say whatever they are planning to release has been finalized by now.
I'm hoping to upgrade my iPhone 6 to the new iPhone 8 or whatever they will call it. Probably will be a very expensive device. However if the new iPad Pro's are anything to go by, the base model should have 64GB of memory standard, which would at least save me the upgrade cost I've always had to pay for add'l storage.
I'm hoping to upgrade my iPhone 6 to the new iPhone 8 or whatever they will call it. Probably will be a very expensive device. However if the new iPad Pro's are anything to go by, the base model should have 64GB of memory standard, which would at least save me the upgrade cost I've always had to pay for add'l storage.
I am commenting on this article. I’m not making the claim that it is true. But I am saying that Apple working on this for 2 1/2 years in no way guarantees they won’t have any problems getting one of their manufacturing partners to produce it in mass quantities and at a price Apple is willing to pay. They could work on something for longer and still not get it right. Does Apple have a record of success with every 2 1/2 year project?
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You mean like they had figured out the production of the white iPhone 4 when they announced it? You don't get ahead of everybody by always playing it safe.
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You mean they are not the kind of company that would paint itself into a thermal corner with the 2013 Mac Pro?
LMAO @ how jarring that camera cut-out is. Seems like Apple has realized they have fallen behind in the mobile camera game, and rather than release better optics and equipment, they'll just increase the space given! Bigger must equal better, right? Right? Lolol
Agreed. Just look at Job’s iPhone introduction. If certain things weren’t done in a very specific order the OS would’ve crashed during the demo. There was no guarantee their engineers were going to be able to work everything out before the phone was scheduled to ship.
These kinds of things are done all the time. Hardware and software engineers regularly spend long days and nights before a product ships trying to deliver on promises already made by the sales and marketing departments.
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About 10 people quoted my original post saying that is VERY much believable that Apple is currently "scrambling like a chicken with its head cut off"....
All I'm going to say is obviously we have no idea what's going on. The white iPhone 4 is an interesting example and a one off.
Who knows, maybe they are scrambling. I guess we'll see soon...
This seems a very similar thread to this one . . . .
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...and-3d-sensor-causing-panic-at-apple.2056133/
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...and-3d-sensor-causing-panic-at-apple.2056133/
Apple had many products that weren't ready at the announcement date. Often this is just a one or two month delay but there other examples beyond the white iPhone. The Apple Watch, presented in September 2014, barely made its 'beginning of 2015' date by shipping in very small quantities in the last week of April 2015 and wasn't really available in mass before June. The 2013 Mac Pro and the 2016 Airpods also largely only nominally hit their launch window by showing up in homeopathic quantities a few days before Christmass. The Airpods thus arrived at least three month after iPhone 7 shipped one of whose marquee features was the removal of the headphone jack and the switch to Bluetooth headphones.
I think it is fair to say that Apple scrambling to get product out of the door is not an uncommon experience for them.
If they replace TouchID, it'll be because they have something better. Faster, more secure, more reliable, etc. It won't be as a design compromise. That's not how Apple roll.
If they can't get TouchID integrated in to the display properly, they just won't. They're not going to release a crappy iPhone. It'll be the one they wanted to make, or they'll delay it until it's ready.
Seriously, it's like nobody has even heard of Apple before. They're all about big, glitzy announcements with as many "wow" moments as they can manage. They produce intricate products with high-quality materials because they don't compromise. That's their brand. This is the tenth anniversary iPhone. This wasn't left to the last minute - they have been working up to this for several (product) generations.
Steve's golden rule was "under-promise, over-deliver". Apple are probably putting these stories out there to maximise the impact when they announce that it's got all this cool stuff you didn't think they could pull off.