Apple Says Claims Face ID Was Downgraded to Speed Up Production Are 'Completely False'

[ah1488]

i just want apple to use qualcomm again.
This intel chip is pure crap.

as do i. i have a 6s plus with a qualcomm chip and my wife had a 7 with an intel chip and there is a noticeable difference between the two while on the same network. it is one of the reasons that i kept putting off getting a 7 plus as i didnt want to take a downgrade in reception. but its time for a new phone so i will probably get the x.

 

[ChrisCW11]

False until proven true, when millions of people eventually find out Face ID works about as good as it did in the Apple keynote.

 

[AJ5790]

Likewise it wouldn't have done any good to do it a few weeks before pre-sale either. At that point you are super locked in and just the lawyering involved in renegotiating the service level agreements would take time as well. They can't just pick up the phone and say "Hey you can totally relax Q/A on the most important part of this new phone."
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Speaking of glass backs.. I suppose I could google it but is anyone making/considering a tempered glass protector for the back?

If not, huge missed opportunity.

 

[fokmik]

Comeon, people,if apple knows that faceid has big problems,apple would eliminate the 14 days return policy...

 

[ah1488]

I'm sorely tempted by iPhone X, it's my phone update cycle anyway (2 years)... but I'm loathe to get a first generation device.. I was always rewarded by getting the 'S' version, which is what the original version should have been in the first place..

Perhaps I'll wait for 2018.

my hope for 2018 is that there is an x plus

 

[H2SO4]

You guys realize the hardware and software have specifications that aren't 'fuzzy.' If the software and the neural processor are expecting 30k points returned from the dot projector, you can't just wing it and return, say, 20k points. Changing a requirement like this would be completely impractical and time and cost ineffective. Let alone doing this in the last months of production.

No it wouldn't. What world are you living in? Apple would have tested all of this at lots of different levels of accuracy beforehand. They know what they can get away with.

 

[BootsWalking]

Mine never failed, so the “inherent problem” didn’t extend to my phone.

A 100% failure rate isn't the threshold by which an issue is considered to be an inherent problem.

 

[tkukoc]

Yeah, and it wasn’t implied, either. /s

I disagree with what you did say. If the story was true they would simply have not commented.

It wasn't implied.. you misread it.

 

[nauf8]

Can we all just agree now that 99% of what these so-called "analysts" spout out is complete rubbish?

They're given so much airtime and manage to define the narrative despite being so wrong so often.

For Apple to denounce a story this comprehensively is quite unprecedented.

Agree, only the analysts that support  are to be 100% believed and venerated. Those who attack the greatest emperor are rubish and garbage....Don’t believe in everything you read! Except the keynotes

 

[ovo6]

these rumors are just made by google to try to increase their pixel sales lmaooo

 

[WolfSnap]

I’m willing to bet that the odds of a bad match is much less than 1 in a million.. more like 1 in a billion or something crazy like that. But, Apple had a zero-dot defect rate to begin with. They “relaxed” the specs so that you could have 3 or 4 bad dots. Which now makes it 1 in 100,000,000. But, in case More sits die, they only claim 1 in 1,000,000.

It’s not like they understate other metrics.. ip67 is overly conservative too...

 

[shplock]

So 1st they declined comment, then they come with this rebuttal. Was we expecting them to say..."YEA, we downgraded it, so what" lol!

Just because they did not come out straight away and comment does not mean when they do comment that they are lying...unless you have proof? Nope...well then!
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damage control initiated. I wouldnt take either company's side on this.

And I wouldn't take your word on anything!

 

[C00rDiNaT0r]

I do think it's quite possible that they lowered some test specs in order to speed up production. I also think it's quite possible that such changes had no effect on the end result.

Too many people & writers are making the assumption that one thing automatically affects the other.

My uneducated guess is that they can use less datapoints to reconstruct a simulated, 3-D facial "image", similar to machine-learning algorithms that can use a 1080p image and blow it up to 4K without it looking pixelated, then feed it to the original FaceID model with the exact same confidence - the 1 in a million chance figure they previously quoted.

 

[shplock]

No one knows that for sure though. This is why I said.. what else can Apple say right now? They have to say it's false.. even if it's true. No way on earth they'll admit an issue. There might not even be one. I've worked hand in hand with many companies who downgrade specifications to make the market. Happens more often than not.. doesn't mean there's a problem with the finished good. Should be interesting once these devices hit the market though.

Difference is that this is Apple not some two bit dumb *** company you might have worked for.
Plus if they did downgrade things a bit then people can check it once it gets released.
Would not be too hard for some people with the right skills to do so.

 

[DeepIn2U]

better be false fake news at an all time high

Basic garbage to keep and flood "FaceID" into the mainstream consumers' mind as a brand name. Basic non tech consumers looking for alternative phone from iPhone X will ask "does it have FaceID?" The explanation that follows will be no it has "xxx" or whatever but the consumers' mind is set on FaceID. Subliminal marketing 101.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Likewise it wouldn't have done any good to do it a few weeks before pre-sale either. At that point you are super locked in and just the lawyering involved in renegotiating the service level agreements would take time as well. They can't just pick up the phone and say "Hey you can totally relax Q/A on the most important part of this new phone."

Agreed. About the only way the scenario makes sense is a relaxation of overly-stringent QC standards. For a feature of this sort, it would make sense for Apple to under-promise and over-deliver. Perhaps they set the bar so high that they can, if necessary, somewhat reduce manufacturing tolerances and still deliver the quality promised to the consumer.

Regardless, Apple has denied making any such change. What's left in this discussion (and many others in these forums) boils down to, "Do you trust Apple, or not?" All the logic in the world cannot sway the true believer, regardless of what "truth" they believe.

 

[pat500000]

PR vs. clickbait rumors....who wins? You decide.

 

[matthewv1227]

i'm trying to protect my brethren from having to get up on saturday when preorders unlock just to buy a watered-down product. especially if they were intending on getting a 256gb space gray X. they definitely should not be trying to buy that now.

I wouldn’t recommend the silver either... due to the more reflective back and band of the phone you’re more likely to interfere with Face ID... 256GB also means a heavier phone so I’d stay away from that as well.

 

[djcingular]

Just because they did not come out straight away and comment does not mean when they do comment that they are lying...unless you have proof? Nope...well then!
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And I wouldn't take your word on anything!

I hear what you are saying, however you must also look at the optics on this. It took them a day to reply after declining a statement, then coming out with a "standard" rebuttal.

While I am not an apple apologist, I will agree that FaceID will probably be the best thing since Siri. I just know how to call "BS" when I see it.

 

[Defthand]

So much click bait these days...

Agreed. I trashed my RSS news apps. There’s no such thing as authentic journalism on the Internet. It’s virtually speculation and opinion with hyperbole headlines for window dressing. I give MacRumors a pass because it’s clear that it reports hearsay.

 

[Four oF NINE]

my hope for 2018 is that there is an x plus

Well good luck with that, but I don't really need a larger phone; I like a phone that will fit in my pocket comfortably. If I need a larger screen on an iOS device, I'll use the iPad.

 

[jonnysods]

Surprise surprise. They will do this right!

 

[convergent]

You guys realize the hardware and software have specifications that aren't 'fuzzy.' If the software and the neural processor are expecting 30k points returned from the dot projector, you can't just wing it and return, say, 20k points. Changing a requirement like this would be completely impractical and time and cost ineffective. Let alone doing this in the last months of production.

Having worked in semiconductor manufacturing for many years, you are incorrect. There are lots of things they could have "relaxed" in the manufacturing requirements that would not change the design. Their claims of accuracy made during the announcement are completely unprovable. How could they prove something like a million to one, against the global population of faces, with no large field experience, while at the same time claiming that with some people it will actually fail, as with twins. If they changed a manufacturing spec, no one would know, because no one would have the original design spec in the field. Its all double talk. They did what they needed to do to get the product manufactured.

Well obviously you know more then most...

What I said, was "I believe". I am confident that I know "more than most" what I believe. I claim nothing more than that. I've been around the block a few times and don't just believe what people say.

I remind everyone who is blindly believing every unprovable thing that Apple is saying about this product, which is the most important product launch they've done in probably 10 years, that this company came out with "you are holding it wrong" to explain away a product problem in the past.

I don't blindly believe anything... I assess the information based on my experience and draw my own conclusions. Putting together the information over the last month, I believe they did change something in the manufacturing specs. I have said multiple times, that may have zero impact on user experience, or it may have an impact on user experience. No one will ever know. So its all a ridiculous debate. The bottom line is that in a few days millions of these things will be in user's hands and their reviews will be all that matters. If they objectively love it, good for Apple. If they have problems with FaceID, it is not going to go well for Apple.

 

[ah1488]

Agreed. I trashed my RSS news apps. There’s no such thing as authentic journalism on the Internet. It’s virtually speculation and opinion with hyperbole headlines for window dressing.

this i want the news not somebodys opinion on something.

 

[J.Dillinger]

Bloomberg is trying to impact APPL stock price.