Apple Rolling Out Face ID For iPad

In the beta version of iOS 12 found confirmation of the old rumors about the appearance in new iPad models of the biometric authentication system FaceID, which uses the front camera TrueDepth. And in Apple , apparently, are already preparing to eliminate the main limitation of this function.

A well-known developer of Apple’s gadget software Steve Trauton-Smith shared the find the day before. He found in the code of a new operating system for the iPad AvatarKit – a module that provides the work of “animoggi” – avatars, facial expressions of which users of the iPhone X can control with their face and camera TrueDepth.

Another developer, Guillermo Rambo from Brazil , previously made a screenshot on the iPad with iOS 12 with the FaceID unlock settings. If the code found by programmers was in the assembly of the beta version of iOS for the iPad, not by mistake, then we are waiting for a tablet with the same face recognition module as the flagship smartphone Apple.

New in iOS 12: AvatarKit comes to iPad. Still requires a TrueDepth camera to do face tracking, though, i.e. an iPad with Face ID pic.twitter.com/9TvP2vsP6X

— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) July 3, 2018

Recall, TrueDepth – not just a camera, but a complex of two sensors: a 7-megapixel front camera and an infrared camera, and two infrared illuminators – a “point projector” (total of 30,000 points) and a “filling” emitter (the light from both is invisible). The system resembles a Microsoft Kinect reduced to a few centimeters , only there is an infrared “illuminator” one – a point one.

FaceID now has one limitation, not very significant in the case of a smartphone, but it threatens many users of tablets. The fact is that on iPhone X in iOS 11 you can add only one scan face, which is logical – the smartphone user in the vast majority of cases alone.

In the beta version of iOS 12 added the ability to save the “alternative appearance” (see the screenshot above), which allows you to unlock the device to someone else. However, for the “family” iPad, two users probably will not be enough – wondering if Apple will be able to solve this problem before the iPad comes out with Face ID. The company explained the limitation of “one device – one FaceID” in that for comparing a single face scan with several saved variants, too much computational resources would go away and the unlock time would inevitably increase.