Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Reportedly Reduced Face ID Accuracy to Speed Up iPhone X Production
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Yea, because I'd love taking my case off every time I want to unlock my phone.
Uh... the case would obviously have a cutout. Pretty sure they make cases for Galaxy S8, Pixel, Pixel 2 and the dozens of other phones with a fingerprint sensor on the back of the phone (where it belongs).
Apple could publicly come out and say this and people would still turn a blind eye to it. That’s why I prefer being a fan and not a “fanboy.” I’ll call Apple out when they deserve it because I want a better product. Seems like Tim and the gang just care about having enough to sell.
It’s “nip in the bud.”
Apple has already responded by not responding. The story is probably true. It’s also probably meaningless, since FaceID is so much more secure than TouchID. A modest reduction in accuracy is not going to change that.
You mean technology will continue to get better?! /s
We are not just talking about technological advancements with a phone here, but also manufacturing. No one has ever had to make this before, in this volume, to these tolerances.
As Microsoft end-of-life Kinect, the same technology used in Face ID from PrimeSense, Apple are rebirthing it in the iPhone X.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/25/m...t-but-the-tech-will-live-on-in-other-devices/
https://techcrunch.com/2017/10/25/m...t-but-the-tech-will-live-on-in-other-devices/
I doubt the veracity of these stories for a few reasons. First, only some suppliers are having trouble with yields, while others are doing fine. Second, they are claiming over and over that Apple will have almost no iPhones X available at launch. If that was true, why would Apple be incentivizing people to order early? The IUP is streamlining the process to increase pre-orers. Apple has allowed iPhone X to take over its entire homepage. They are telling people to come to the store and they can walk home with an iPhone X on day 1. These are not the actions of a company concerned about producing enough units. When Apple produced the iPhone 7 plus, I don't think they realized it would be so much more popular than the 7 due to the double cameras. After all, the smaller 6s was more popular than the 6s+. This time you can be certain Apple knows the X is the "gotta have it" phone and will have spent the last month or two building up reserves, not struggling just to make 2 million of them.
Because 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. gen products never have major issues? People keep spouting this "wisdom" about 1st gen products, but truly, every generation of tech products these days is essentially built with a different assortment of components than the previous one. I've owned plenty of Apple and other brand products of various generations. One generation is no more or less reliable than the next because they are all essentially 1st gen products that adopt the family name of it's predecessor. It's all just a big tech crap shoot -- come out can always be 7 or 11 or 2, 3 or 12, or some other number.
There is such a thing as reliable sources of info, and unreliable sources. If you’re smart it isn’t so hard to sort the two.
Bloomberg is not going to print something completely unfounded. It’s a major news org, and the fact that Apple declined to comment says volumes. I’m not concerned about the reliability of FaceID (I’m sure it will be more accurate than TouchID either way). But I have no reason to doubt this report.
Yup... Amazing how so many people latch onto an unnamed source, with 100% confidence. Fake "news" rules the day again. And people slurp it up as confirmed fact.
Why?
I still have an original iPhone. Works just fine.
My early B&W G3 works perfectly today
My 2008 Unibody MacBook Pro works fine.
My Original iPod (first gen) still works great.
AirPods work awesomely with my iPhones new and old, Apple Watch, and Android devices.
Quality control issues exist in all electronics companies, while they are making media recently for minor issues, they are all quite weak / subjective as compared to past problems Apple had with Hardware and software. Take a search through the MacRumors Archives for iBook G3 and G4 Logic board issues. Yellow screens, Keyboard issues, Titanium PowerBook case issues. Software glitches in early versions of OS X, issues with PowerPC G5 cooling systems. Etc, etc.
Looks like you are building a 100% plus ratio Apple iPhoneX competition. Care to show what the prototype looks like?
Yawn...even if this is "True" which given the amount of conflicting reports about iPhone X recently and Apple in general for years, I really don't think it necessarily changes much.
Perhaps instead of 1 in a million, it's 1 in 900,000 or 1 in 500,000. Does it really mean the technology is a failure? They also said the testing was relaxed somewhat, which could mean the components are just fine.
Apple is smart. You have to hit production numbers and if sacrificing some small amount of accuracy (surely within reason) means you can ship phones, why not. Consumers will probably not even be able to discern any difference. You have to ship this phone...doesn't do much good if you miss deadlines when they'll be a new one next year.
Furthermore, this is pretty detailed information that requires a high level of knowledge of this situation. We are talking super detailed and confidential information that probably only a few people really know the details. I highly doubt this is even true or if some component is true, the story was a lot like the telephone game.
Perhaps instead of 1 in a million, it's 1 in 900,000 or 1 in 500,000. Does it really mean the technology is a failure? They also said the testing was relaxed somewhat, which could mean the components are just fine.
Apple is smart. You have to hit production numbers and if sacrificing some small amount of accuracy (surely within reason) means you can ship phones, why not. Consumers will probably not even be able to discern any difference. You have to ship this phone...doesn't do much good if you miss deadlines when they'll be a new one next year.
Furthermore, this is pretty detailed information that requires a high level of knowledge of this situation. We are talking super detailed and confidential information that probably only a few people really know the details. I highly doubt this is even true or if some component is true, the story was a lot like the telephone game.
I don’t doubt the report but it is making a mountain out of a molehill. It isn’t as if FaceID will be less secure or accurate than TouchID. It wouldn’t surprise me at all that they make these kinds of decisions with every generation.
The white paper clearly answers the underlying question with enough detail enough detail: On sudden change of appearance and failure of recognition and then successful authorization, the phone will use the capture from the previous failure in order to adapt to that change by temporarily adding it to the samples. None of this "confuse the neural net" bull you're spouting even makes sense: All of your questions are meant to poke at some irrelevant bits to sound very smart, but you haven't even read or comprehended the most minimal of materials out there in the relevant topic.
So lets think about the time line here. Lets go ok sure the article is right on the money. They did indeed loosen the standard and responded with a massive software push. This makes sense 11.0 GM was horrible. They were busy fixing the X from before the announce. They are going to release this and they are going to hit stated security norms. They have no choice the Apple Pay brand is on the line and that is worth more than iPhone sales
Apple rarely comments on anything, so their lack of comments on this matter don’t mean anything either way.
Who’s the reliable source? Some analyst who’s wrong 80% of the time? Bloomberg has regularly reported on rumors that have later proven to be false. They are far from being infallible.
Do you understand what IR is? You might want to read up on that. And FYI the iris scanning on my Note 8 works in total darkeness because its IR.
Its not ridiculous and no one said the design was changed. Do you understand what lowering a spec is? You used the A11 example. I've worked in semiconductor manufacturing and the "speed" of a component is determined by testing it. There can be 4 or 5 different CPU part numbers that run at different speeds, and they are all the same design. They are made together, and after testing the ones that pass the faster test get the faster speed part number. Its clear here that they gave manufacturing a spec that they can't make in high volume, so they've lowered the spec. It happens. The impact on performance with the user is to be determined.
Wow - didn't know it was that low. Would have guessed (well I actually did guess) a lot higher.
I believe it's lower than other flagships because of the sides, which they have left the same thickness of older iPhones, whereas Galaxy for example has no edge bezel.
I do think this was a purposeful decision on Apple's part. True bezel-less sure looks cool, but they are simply not as practical.