Bet FaceID/Pearl ID is coming to Macs next year

[67952]

If the new Pearl/Face ID in the iPhone 8 is really as mind-blowing as rumors suggest and negates the need for Touch ID at all, anyone else think we'll see Face ID on Macs a lot sooner than we saw Touch ID on Macs? Touch ID took almost 5 years to come to the Mac–only Apple knows why, but regardless, Face ID seems like a much more natural fit for a computer as all Mac laptops and the iMac desktop have had cameras for years.

I'm willing to bet the 2018 Macs will have new cameras with Face ID tech built in. Imagine it:

• Sitting down to your Mac and it automatically unlocking because it knows you are the owner.
• Having your Mac automatically unlock and log in to the correct user account based on who sits down at it.
• The ability to open locked and encrypted documents on the Mac without entering a password because your Mac knows you, the owner of the documents, are using it.
• No longer any need to confirm your password for iTunes purchases because you Mac knows you, the iTunes account holder, are sitting in front of your Mac and using it.
• Face ID on the web: Log into virtually any website that has your user credentials stored in Safari's keychain. Just go to the URL and the camera on your Mac automatically logs you into the site.

I'm sure there are even more possibilities I'm not even thinking of...

 

[New_Mac_Smell]

You'll always require a physical password to access deep level metal processes, or confirm secure encryptions. Fingerprint/facial recognition software is designed to augment and enhance an experience, not replace it. So I enter my password once to confirm who I am, and then I can use TouchID to speed things up. The problem is if I left my computer logged in and was away, and someone came up with a security flaw that allowed them to access things without the need for a password (Fingerprint readers can be tricked quite easily).

So for security reasons, it's unlikely to ever fully replace passwords, but it can significantly help out.

Otherwise anything like this would require a redesign of the camera module to add greater precision and possibly IR capabilities. These modules would be too thick and stick out of the display with a bevel, which cannot happen. Also all the modules are probably going to be used in iPhones and so stock constraints.

It will come to Mac, but I wouldn't expect to see it at least before a re-design occurs around 2020. Not in the current generation of MBPs.

 

[jerryk]

If the new Pearl/Face ID in the iPhone 8 is really as mind-blowing as rumors suggest and negates the need for Touch ID at all, anyone else think we'll see Face ID on Macs a lot sooner than we saw Touch ID on Macs? Touch ID took almost 5 years to come to the Mac–only Apple knows why, but regardless, Face ID seems like a much more natural fit for a computer as all Mac laptops and the iMac desktop have had cameras for years.

I'm willing to bet the 2018 Macs will have new cameras with Face ID tech built in. Imagine it:

• Sitting down to your Mac and it automatically unlocking because it knows you are the owner.
• Having your Mac automatically unlock and log in to the correct user account based on who sits down at it.
• The ability to open locked and encrypted documents on the Mac without entering a password because your Mac knows you, the owner of the documents, are using it.
• No longer any need to confirm your password for iTunes purchases because you Mac knows you, the iTunes account holder, are sitting in front of your Mac and using it.
• Face ID on the web: Log into virtually any website that has your user credentials stored in Safari's keychain. Just go to the URL and the camera on your Mac automatically logs you into the site.

I'm sure there are even more possibilities I'm not even thinking of...

Windows has had this for a while with Windows Hello. It even can tell identical twins apart.

And the fingerprint recognition is just as handy on IOS devices. And then there is the pesky issue of glasses, especially tinted glasses.

Seems more evolutionary than revolutionary to me.