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This is so unnecessary

More relevant, I think, is the UI.
Forget the exact technology, TODAY we have a UI that is pretty well optimized for two tasks.
You can just pick up your phone and the lock-screen widgets tell you a bunch of immediate info (new emails, notifications, SMS, etc). You can then touch the home button (without even pressing, if you've set preferences correctly) and swap to the "unlocked" phone with whatever app you were last using.

Bits of this are less slick if you have an older iPhone, but with an iPhone 7 all the pieces work seamlessly.
If you now add some sort of face/eye recognition to the mix, you lose any value to widgets on the lock-screen because there'll be no "normal" way to view the lock-screen without immediately unlocking. (On iPhone 7 this is not a problem --- view the lock screen by picking up the phone. On earlier phones, either view the lock screen by hitting the power button, or by hitting the home button using a non-fingerprint finger.)

I'm not sure this is a useful direction. I think most people (especially with an iPhone 7) find the lock screen widgets crazy useful, MORE useful than some sort of immediate unlock would be. And I don't see a UI that achieves that same goals (show "updated status widgets until I want to switch to 'unlocked phone mode'") that's simpler than what we have today --- making that switch from "status update display" to "full phone with apps" mode has to have some sort of user touch.

The only way I can see this being valuable is something like:
I look at the phone but it is NOT immediately unlocked. Instead it remains locked until I touch something. This would allow for "traditional" (touch the home button) unlocking, but would allow for ONE slightly more slick move, namely when I swipe say an email or a text message, I immediately get dumped into the unlocked app without having to move my finger to the home button.
This is one of those tweaks that you can live without, but would be cute to have. My guess is that's how Apple will do it, and as a consequence, it won't seem like much of a change at all from the way you use your iPhone today, except for that one small usage change.

(And note, Apple could achieve the same result without eye/face recognition if it used ultrasonic fingerprint recognition that works anywhere on the screen. This technology exists and has its own value --- eg it can also be used to provide 3D-touch style pressure sensing. To me it seems like a more elegant overall solution than adding eye/face recognition.)
 
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maybe.. but the phone doesn't work with dead skin

What about someone who knocked out?
If the eye scanner is done properly, it could probably detect that you are awake and willing. Would be interesting.
 
<suspicion theory>First they took our fingerprints, then they took our Iris scan - and eventually they took our identity!</suspicion theory>

scnr ;-)
 
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This is probably another reason why we will never see a longer lasting more powerful battery in the iPhone. Apple always has to account for more space needed inside the phone for each model and if they set the bar for a longer larger battery they may end up with not enough space for new technology that arrives. The iPhone is always advancing and battery will never be first on the list of concerns. Apple need to sell phones and touting battery is not going to sell phones but catchy stuff like Touch ID 3D Touch and Eye ID will sell phones thus battery will suffer.
 
Wouldn't it be awesome if we could just get ONE 'rumor' about the Mac Pro or Mac mini, instead of the constant barrage of iPhone 'news/guesses', when we ALL know its coming in September - like it ALWAYS IS!
 
Does this worry anyone?

Why would it?

Surprised no-one's mentioned the health aspects. If they do use a laser scanner rather than just the camera for reading your iris, how many times a day do you want your eye exposed to a laser?

No laser.

Iris scanners use diffused IR lights and a camera. And there are limits on the strength of the IR that's allowed.

maybe.. but the phone doesn't work with dead skin

Blogger myth. Apple themselves have never made such a claim, as far as I know. Nor should they.

The kind of fingerprint sensor used on the iPhone does work with dead fingers, for at least an hour. Longer, if you pump the finger full of saline or blood again.
 
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If Samsung does it first. MacRumors thinks it's s gimmick.
Samsung did it first, but can you actually buy a samsung with an iris scanner now?
However they did make the first exploding iris scanning phone. So in a actual product, you can buy? No...
 
Samsung did it first, but can you actually buy a samsung with an iris scanner now?
However they did make the first exploding iris scanning phone. So in a actual product, you can buy? No...
why are you so defensive
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Shockingly, all those "there will be a 7S I promise you" devotees have gone missing...
Rumors point to a 7s. What does this article have to do with a 7s anyways. It says this will be specific to the 8.
 
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I'm not someone overly concerned with privacy but does it not concern anyone else how much of our personal information is in the hands of these huge corporations? Apple alone have webcams, front-facing cameras, our fingerprints, now iris images. I just hope they can be trusted.
 
I'm not someone overly concerned with privacy but does it not concern anyone else how much of our personal information is in the hands of these huge corporations? Apple alone have webcams, front-facing cameras, our fingerprints, now iris images. I just hope they can be trusted.

Phone makers don't have our fingerprint or iris images.

What is stored... on the phone only, in the secure enclave... is a set of data points derived from examining those scans. (For fingerprints, it might be a vector map of where print ridges and valleys and whorls and islands and forks are, plus sweat pore locations.)

Each subsequent unlock scan is rendered into the same kind of semi-abstract representation for a match closeness test with the stored templates.

The stored calculated info can't be reversed into an exact copy of our iris or prints, although it could be used to create mathematically similar ones that could be used in place of the real thing.
 
Apple's touch ID security has already been defeated by a six year old child.

http://www.techtimes.com/articles/190299/20161227/touch-id-is-no-match-for-a-6-year-old-youngster-beats-security-feature-orders-250-worth-of-pokémon-items.htm

Iris scanner is more secure than touch ID but combining both makes it's even stronger. That's the point of MF (multi-factor) in MFA.

The device itself is a factor, so FP is "multifactor". This "secure enclave" some mention here , get over it.All vendors have secure areas on their devices that's just "apl marketing speech" this "secure enclave" is same as all other vendors a private area.
 
Waste of money, time and resources. By the time I get my phone out of the pocket, it's already unlocked. No need to look at it at all.

Not gonna happen with the buttonless iphone X, unless you develop an uncanny sense of where exactly to place your finger on the plain slab of glass without looking at it.
 
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You haven't considered that Apple is/has/would test this technology with all scenarios?

I doubt that Apple or anyone else could come up with all possible scenarios. There will always be a small percentage of users for whom it will not work.
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Would be coool if it can do some eye exam.

At over $1000 it will be great for doing rectal exams.
 
I doubt that Apple or anyone else could come up with all possible scenarios. There will always be a small percentage of users for whom it will not work.
[doublepost=1486787749][/doublepost]

At over $1000 it will be great for doing rectal exams.
They won't cover that via Apple care. Rectal damage proof.
 
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