When two rumors collide, you get this – Apple’s foldable iPad Pro will have an under-display Face ID, says leakster Digital Chat Station. We’ve been hearing about those things (foldables and under-display hardware) for years now, it was inevitable that they would overlap at some point.
First off, this is for the upcoming foldable iPad Pro, not the foldable iPhone that is supposed to be coming next year. This might not move all of the Face ID hardware – it’s a combo of an IR projector and an IR camera – but only the projector. This will be achieved with a “meta-lens” (or not, Google Translate may have failed us here).
This sounds a lot like the original plans to shrink the Dynamic Island on iPhones – first the projector moves under the display, then a couple of generations later, the camera goes under as well. This was originally supposed to happen this year with the iPhone 17, but more recent info suggests that this upgrade needs more time in the lab before it can be implemented.
Face ID is Apple’s preferred secure unlock mechanism
As for the foldable iPad Pro, it will allegedly have an 18.8” display – that’s larger than any MacBook though smaller than iMacs (currently only sold in 24” size, but 21.5” models used to be available).
Anyway, Apple has transitioned to Face ID almost completely – Touch ID can still be found on some iPads (vanilla, Air, mini), while others (the Pros) use Face ID. The fingerprint reader is no longer on iPhones now that the SE is discontinued and the 16e switched to Face ID. Apple could have easily implemented under-display Touch ID, but it seems that Cupertino has no interest in doing so.
Source (in Chinese)
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