We’ve already seen plenty of iPhone 8 rumours, but the most bizarre one would have to be today’s rumour. According to serial leaker, Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI, the iPhone 8 will not have Touch ID or fingerprint sensor of any kind; not even the on-screen fingerprint sensor that was previously rumoured. Bloomberg reports that Apple will replace Touch ID with 3D facial detection.
According to various reports, the iPhone 8 will have an almost bezel-free design. This would mean that Apple has to remove its iconic home button. Previous report from KGI says that Apple will replace it with a virtual home button with optical fingerprint sensor, but today, the analyst says that it wouldn’t happen. Ming-Chi Kuo now believes that there will not be any fingerprint sensor on board at all.
Kuo believes that Apple will ditch fingerprint sensor in favour of facial recognition, “reasons being (1) the full-screen design doesn’t work with existing capacitive fingerprint recognition, and (2) the scan-through ability of the under-display fingerprint solution still has technical challenges.”
Ming-Chi Kuo is not the only one to believe so though, Bloomberg also released a similar report earlier saying that Apple is testing the use of 3D facial detection to replace fingerprint authentication. This is in-line with an older rumour that says that Apple is working on a new 3D-sensing front camera for games and facial recognition. Could Apple really ditch its Touch ID completely in favour of something new?
Ming-Chi Kuo says that Apple will launch three new iPhones this year. On top of the much talked-about OLED iPhone 8 (also known as the 10th anniversary iPhone), Apple is expected to announce two incremental iPhones, most likely called the iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus. All three will support wireless charging, and will come in 64GB and 256GB storage options. They will still use Lightning port, but with embedded USB-C power to deliver circuit for faster charging speeds.
Bloomberg’s report says that Apple will use ProMotion technology on its iPhone 8. Found on the latest iPad Pro, ProMotion is a “new technology that delivers refresh rates of up to 120Hz for fluid scrolling, greater responsiveness and smoother motion content.”
Apple is expected to announce these new iPhones in September 2017, so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how many of these rumours are true.
