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No way to physically block face scanners and eye trackers is a deal breaker for me. So far I can still use an iPhone SE and put a sticker over the camera when not in use. Hiding cameras and face scanners under the screen would be a great way to push me out of the ecosystem, once and for all.
 
I had an Android phone with under screen front cam.

IT WAS HORRIBLE.
truly horrid.

the image quality was severely affected and ghosted and was wishy washy.

it could have been just badly implemented or perhaps there are major limits to what you can do.
 
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No way to physically block face scanners and eye trackers is a deal breaker for me. So far I can still use an iPhone SE and put a sticker over the camera when not in use. Hiding cameras and face scanners under the screen would be a great way to push me out of the ecosystem, once and for all.

I agree 100%. The SE3 is my last iPhone or Smartphone at all. Luckily it's too small for me, what is preventing me already from using it. Only in some special situations I still need it.

There are one or two privacy phones with hardware switches for several things out there. One even has dual-boot of a Google-free Android and Ubuntu Touch. I hope there will be more of such in the future because they are not really good ones and expensive.
 
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Once the iPhone is all screen, further hardware form advancements seem to be restricted to thickness and foldability— which may introduce an additional outer display to advance over time.
I don't know what the term "form advancements" means, but once the phone is all-screen, they can realize it was a big mistake and put in a physical keyboard, a user replaceable battery, a physical SIM card, and other features that Blackberrys had in 2006.

All-screen is no more an enhancement to a phone than all-glass would be to a house. Different things serve different purposes to different people. Big screens suck a lot of power, take up a lot of space, and introcuce durability challenges. Not sure how all of that is weighted against the utility they provide, which seems limited to media consumption -- something phones are a massive compromise for anyway. If I want a computer I'll buy a computer, if I want a projector I'll buy a projector, and if I want a stereo I'll buy a console. The phone is bad at the things those items do and isn't getting meaningfully better. Nor should it. So the focus on screen (and especially this or that size of notch) is silly.

The more items are designed for everyone the more they become designed for no one.
 
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Those Android phones don't have FaceID, which uses more than just a camera to detect your face and is a LOT more secure as a result.
Secure for whom and from whom?

I'm not concerned about my wife unlocking my phone or with petty thieves getting hold of it and guessing a passcode. I am concerned with the phone logging what I'm viewing, or that I'm the person reading it at all. Such databases should not exist and if the technology exists for that to happen, no doubt it will. Seems so odd to claim that an intrusive convenience feature is actually there for your security. Do you have a doorbell camera too?

Update: Love the dislikes from the surveillance proponents. Have fun in the Panopticon, fellas!
 
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With the dynamic island expected to become smaller this year for the 17 Pro Max at least, expecting Apple to continue with it till 2027, where maybe for the 20th anniversary iPhone it will have under the screen Face ID
 
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Well finally we can go back to a perfectly rectangular unobstructed screen like the good old days right up until the iPhone 8+. The X is what started this Notch nonsense where they could have just placed face id sensors into a thin bezel.
 
Bla bla, yaddayadda …

I mean since rumors continue to repeat for forever now. Apple could have build a phone with a pinhole camera and a ultrasonic fingerprint sensor for almost a decade now, but it didn‘t.
And if it did, it wood look exactly like the Pixel. Which has pinhole camera, fingerprint sensor and face recognition - together with rumored horizontal camera alignment. Additionally it is available in a foldable version.
 
I think I'll hold off upgrading from my 14 Pro until they've removed the island completely. The 14 Pro is damn good and the cost of some gimmicky UI features and the camera button are not worth the price of admission.

I don't want foldable, I don't care about AI, better optical zoom would be nice but not essential and I want a good screen where I don't have the image obstructed. Beyond that I'm struggling to see what Apple might add to the iPhone that would really make me want to shell out more cash.
 
No way to physically block face scanners and eye trackers is a deal breaker for me. So far I can still use an iPhone SE and put a sticker over the camera when not in use. Hiding cameras and face scanners under the screen would be a great way to push me out of the ecosystem, once and for all.
I do see your point, though I do not share your particular concern, personally. (That does not of course invalidate your concern.) It may be worth pointing out that other phones have (and will have) under-screen cameras, so it's conceivable that you could find your available options diminishing in coming years, at least in the flagship phone arena.

I don't imagine this will meaningfully assuage your concerns... but interestingly enough, under-screen cameras can be blocked, to some extent -- and you don't even need a sticker. The beginning of this teardown video of one existing phone with an under-screen camera offers a glimpse into what I mean; if a bright color is rendered to the screen area resting over the camera, that color almost entirely obliterates the camera's view. To get the display to be as close to "transparent" as possible for use with the camera, you have to turn off the screen in that location, leaving at a minimum what looks like... a black hole in the display. Fancy that?

This necessity is why I've described the software interface for Apple's Dynamic Island as a "forward facing feature"; the under-screen Face ID sensors and camera will almost certainly continue to use virtually the same interface in order to black out the screen in the appropriate location when needed. The only question left for that is, how will Apple redesign the widgets that occasionally pop into view on either side of the no-longer-omnipresent Island? I imagine Apple already has a plan for that -- and hopefully it's a good one, but time will tell.

In any case, as I alluded above, I'm sure that there will continue to be iPhones (and other phones) without under-screen cameras for quite awhile, as the feature will obviously be restricted to the flagship/Pro lineups, at least initially. So you certainly have time to figure out what you'll be doing next, if Apple really does stop catering to your particular needs.
 
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I do see your point, though I do not share your particular concern, personally. (That does not of course invalidate your concern.) It may be worth pointing out that other phones have (and will have) under-screen cameras, so it's conceivable that you could find your available options diminishing in coming years, at least in the flagship phone arena.

I don't imagine this will meaningfully assuage your concerns... but interestingly enough, under-screen cameras can be blocked, to some extent -- and you don't even need a sticker. The beginning of this teardown video of one existing phone with an under-screen camera offers a glimpse into what I mean; if a bright color is rendered to the screen area resting over the camera, that color almost entirely obliterates the camera's view. To get the display to be as close to "transparent" as possible for use with the camera, you have to turn off the screen in that location, leaving at a minimum what looks like... a black hole in the display. Fancy that?

This necessity is why I've described the software interface for Apple's Dynamic Island as a "forward facing feature"; the under-screen Face ID sensors and camera will almost certainly continue to use virtually the same interface in order to black out the screen in the appropriate location when needed. The only question left for that is, how will Apple redesign the widgets that occasionally pop into view on either side of the no-longer-omnipresent Island? I imagine Apple already has a plan for that -- and hopefully it's a good one, but time will tell.

In any case, as I alluded above, I'm sure that there will continue to be iPhones (and other phones) without under-screen cameras for quite awhile, as the feature will obviously be restricted to the flagship/Pro lineups, at least initially. So you certainly have time to figure out what you'll be doing next, if Apple really does stop catering to your particular needs.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. I do anticipate the situation for me to get worse as the technology becomes ever more invasive. I expect it to be worse for the fans of such technology as well, though I suspect they won't realize it until the situation is far more difficult to improve than it is today. People are willing to gamble with large risks to mitigate small ones -- or even to have features that create insignificantly small new amounts of convenience.
 
Once the iPhone is all screen, further hardware form advancements seem to be restricted to thickness and foldability— which may introduce an additional outer display to advance over time.
The next step is 3D. Not cheesy 3D where the objects stick out of the screen and you need a special pair of glasses, but something more like Google's Starline— a "magic window" you can maintain eye contact through when Facetiming. That might require several under screen cameras, or maybe cameras around the edge of the screen. But I guarantee that's where this is headed.
 
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