AppleInsider podcast talks Touch ID rumors, RED phone and a very expensive 'iPhone 8'

This week on the AppleInsider podcast, Neil and Victor talk about the 'will-they-won't-they' push pull on whether or not the rumoured 'iPhone 8' has Touch ID on the front, back, or not at all, the RED phone announcement, and the fear of a very expensive iPhone.

AppleInsider editors Neil Hughes and Victor Marks discuss:

Will the "iPhone 8" have a Touch ID sensor?
Way-too-speculative discussion on Apple's facial recognition technology
What could Apple do with a $1,500+ iPhone?
Apple rumored to go all-OLED with 2018 iPhone models
Apple's chipmaking prowess, and the downfall of Imagination
Camera company RED announces a $1,200 phone with holographic display
HomePod technology, and a Samsung competitor

The show is available on iTunes and your favorite podcast apps by searching for "AppleInsider." Click here to listen, subscribe, and don't forget to rate our show.

Listen to the embedded SoundCloud feed below:

Show note links:

Follow our hosts on Twitter: @thisisneil and @vmarks.

Feedback and comments are always appreciated. Please contact the AppleInsider podcast at [email protected] and follow us on Twitter @appleinsider, plus Facebook and Instagram.

Those interested in sponsoring the show can reach out to us at [email protected].

Follow AppleInsider on Google News

10 Comments

Metriacanthosaurus

said about 6 years ago

Neil, your comments on Face ID are amateurish and unimaginative.

Let's just say, without knowing anything about the actual product, that you had this one fact to stand on: Apple is replacing Touch ID with Face ID.

Ok. If you were given that knowledge, questions are:

1) Do you honestly believe that Apple would do anything to inhibit the use of Apple Pay? Would Apple even bother if it wasn't at least as good and convenient as it is today, if not more so? I have hard time believing that anyone that knows Apple at all could believe that.

2) Do you honestly believe that Apple would introduce a successor to Touch ID that was inferior to Touch ID? Touch ID is a world-class, industry leading convenience feature. Apple wouldn't bother moving on from it unless they had something better. It is so incredibly easy to throw around amateur accusations that are fueled by the history of facial recognition...but you have the entire history of fingerprint readers before Touch ID, and then Touch ID, to tell you why that is a futile endeavor.

nhughes

said about 6 years ago

Metriacanthosaurus said:

Neil, your comments on Face ID are amateurish and unimaginative.

OK.

Metriacanthosaurus said:
1) Do you honestly believe that Apple would do anything to inhibit the use of Apple Pay?

It's not like Apple Pay is a major source of revenue for Apple. And as I acknowledged in the episode, for many users, facial recognition may be more convenient than Touch ID. I'm not arguing that facial recognition would inhibit the use of Apple Pay overall, but I am saying it would limit its use in certain scenarios.

Metriacanthosaurus said:
2) Do you honestly believe that Apple would introduce a successor to Touch ID that was inferior to Touch ID?

You mean like ditching MagSafe for a single USB-C port for both data and power? Or requiring a dongle to use wired headphones? Apple will make the trade-offs it deems necessary. Apple's facial recognition technology could be (and if they launch it, I assume it will be) best-in-class. And, again, for many users, facial recognition login may be more convenient than Touch ID. But it will still result in a change in how we use our phones.

Remember the swipe to unlock gesture? We don't do that anymore because of Touch ID. Feeling the home button in your pocket and unlocking your phone as you pull it out? That might be going away too. Some people (most?) may not care. I would, though.

Anyhow, all of this is a moot point. Until the product is announced and we can test how well it works in our own individual use cases, the speculation is meaningless. Which is why I didn't really want to get into it in the first place.

Metriacanthosaurus

said about 6 years ago

nhughes said:

Metriacanthosaurus said:

Neil, your comments on Face ID are amateurish and unimaginative.

OK.

Metriacanthosaurus said:
1) Do you honestly believe that Apple would do anything to inhibit the use of Apple Pay?

It's not like Apple Pay is a major source of revenue for Apple. And as I acknowledged in the episode, for many users, facial recognition may be more convenient than Touch ID. I'm not arguing that facial recognition would inhibit the use of Apple Pay overall, but I am saying it would limit its use in certain scenarios.

Metriacanthosaurus said:
2) Do you honestly believe that Apple would introduce a successor to Touch ID that was inferior to Touch ID?

You mean like ditching MagSafe for a single USB-C port for both data and power? Or requiring a dongle to use wired headphones? Apple will make the trade-offs it deems necessary. Apple's facial recognition technology could be (and if they launch it, I assume it will be) best-in-class. And, again, for many users, facial recognition login may be more convenient than Touch ID. But it will still result in a change in how we use our phones.

Remember the swipe to unlock gesture? We don't do that anymore because of Touch ID. Feeling the home button in your pocket and unlocking your phone as you pull it out? That might be going away too. Some people (most?) may not care. I would, though.

Anyhow, all of this is a moot point. Until the product is announced and we can test how well it works in our own individual use cases, the speculation is meaningless. Which is why I didn't really want to get into it in the first place.

Apple Pay is an extremely important feature for iPhone, that Apple puts a lot of emphasis on. Apple Pay as a service is not meant to generate revenue for Apple. It is meant to sell iPhones.

The "certain scenarios" you refer to are puzzling to me. You hold the phone out in front of you scan on an NFC reader. In no imaginable scenario is the front of the phone not pointing toward you. Even if it is at an extreme angle, it would still work. Why? Because it has to. Apple can't replace Touch ID with Face ID if it doesn't work in the most basic scenario. This much is obvious, and doesn't warrant any concern.

I said "inferior". You must have confused that somehow with "superior". USB-C for both data and power is not a tradeoff. It is a net superior choice to MagSafe.

I don't understand your point about Swipe to Unlock...that was replaced by Pressing the Home Button, which just happens to have the Touch ID sensor.

Feeling the Home Button in your pocket? I don't get that. Who gives a shit? The phone will unlock the moment you look at it. There is no material difference between that and if it being unlocked before you look at it.

If these are the biggest concerns, I'd Face ID is already off to a great start.

nhughes

said about 6 years ago

Metriacanthosaurus said:

The "certain scenarios" you refer to are puzzling to me. You hold the phone out in front of you scan on an NFC reader. In no imaginable scenario is the front of the phone not pointing toward you. Even if it is at an extreme angle, it would still work. Why? Because it has to. Apple can't replace Touch ID with Face ID if it doesn't work in the most basic scenario. This much is obvious, and doesn't warrant any concern.

I certainly hope that's the case. Which is why I said that I will reserve judgment until the product ships. But a scenario in which it would not work is pretty easy to see: Hold your phone in front of you like you are going to pay for something while the camera app is open, and see if you can see your own face in the shot. Probably not. The *rumor* is that Apple has addressed this, and the phone will see your face at extreme angles. Will it work in practice? You or I have no idea.

If it actually *does* work that well, how will Apple address the security concerns I mentioned? How will they ensure that it doesn't just scan your face on a whim and unlock your phone or authorize a payment when you don't want it to? I assume Apple will address these problems if and when they announce a product, but they are valid questions to ask.

I said "inferior". You must have confused that somehow with "superior". USB-C for both data and power is not a tradeoff. It is a net superior choice to MagSafe.

To you it may be superior, but to many users, the convenience of MagSafe and the safety in the event of someone tripping over the power cable are superior to USB-C charging. Just because you don't want/need something does not mean all people use their devices in exactly the same way.

I don't understand your point about Swipe to Unlock...that was replaced by Pressing the Home Button, which just happens to have the Touch ID sensor.

My point was actually in support of what you are saying. Right now, we use Touch ID and press the home button to unlock because we've been trained to do it for years. Prior to that, we pressed the home button and swiped to unlock. Perhaps this fall, we will no longer press a button to unlock. There will be an adjustment period, but if Apple turns to facial recognition technology and it works well, we will all survive. And I would guess that a large number of users will enjoy it or perhaps even prefer it over Touch ID. I suspect you will be among that group. Which is great!

If these are the biggest concerns, I'd Face ID is already off to a great start.

Despite your eager attempts to brand a still-unannounced feature, we have no idea how well it will work or if it will even come to fruition. I admire your cheerleading of a hypothetical product and its hypothetical capabilities, but I am skeptical about said hypothetical product and its hypothetical capabilities. Nothing is off to a "great start" because it hasn't even started yet. We'll see what happens this fall.

Again, this is exactly why we haven't weighed in with a "hot take" on this issue in print — because it's a moot point. None of these words will mean anything until we see what Apple announces and how it works. If the "iPhone 8" ships with Touch ID and facial recognition, you and I will both be happy and the world will continue to spin as it always has.

Metriacanthosaurus

said about 6 years ago

This is why in my original post, I said: imagine you have the knowledge that Apple is replacing Touch ID with Face ID.
That fact brings a lot of givens along with it, which you choose to brand as skeptical hypotheticals, which is highly inappropriate. Without that knowledge, and with only the knowledge of existing facial recognition technology, we can talk about hypothetical problems that have to be solved before a solution like that makes, all day long. But that exercise is mostly pointless once we know that Apple has already done that. Probably over the course of a few years.

This is why I called your post "amateur". When you say things like, "but what happens when you tilt your phone?" You're just stirring the pot for no reason. You know full well that Day-1 questions like that are solved long before Apple embraces something as a primary hardware feature.

Oh, and MagSafe no longer serves a purpose once the devices themselves go below a threshold for weight. So, regardless of what you or others might lament about its once-upon-a-time usefulness...its purpose no longer exists, and its function no longer applies.