While fingerprint security is a pretty common security feature we’re seeing in phones these days, smartphone makers are always trying to come up with the next best thing, and for Apple it seems that maybe they think facial recognition could be next, so much so that there are rumors that Apple could introduce the feature in the next iPhone.
However the downside is that facial recognition means your phone needs to be pointed at you so that the camera can pick up on your face, versus fingerprint scanning where as long as your finger can reach the scanner, it’s fine. However it seems that Apple could have found a solution to that problem in the iPhone 8, thanks to a report from iHelp BR (via AppleInsider) who discovered some interesting code strings.
The code strings in question are “AXRestingPearlUnlock” and “com.apple.accessibility.resting.pearl.unlock,” which has since led to speculation that this facial recognition feature could work even if the phone were “resting”, like on its back. This means that users won’t have to pick it up everytime they want to unlock it. We’re not sure how Apple plans on achieving this or how the facial recognition system will work, so do take it with a grain of salt.
So far the facial recognition systems that we’ve seen so far aren’t particularly robust and for the most part can be fooled using just a photo, but hopefully this isn’t the case with the iPhone 8.