We keep waiting for people on the inside team of Apple to give us a few clues about the upcoming iPhone. Turns out, Apple has done us one good and dropped the biggest clue about iPhone 8 design in their HomePod firmware.
A new report observes —
“In an early release of the upcoming HomePod firmware, Apple has left behind a few clues that seem to reveal the existence of the next iPhone’s face detection unlocking feature, as well as the overall form factor of the device.”
The code examined shows the presence of a “‘Pearl ID’ in BiometricKit”. This Pearl ID is Apple’s not-yet-official IR based facial recognition technology. We know Apple already has a very good facial recognition software in place. If you use Apple Photos, you’ll have noticed that. What makes Pearl ID better is the Infra-red (IR) based upgrade — something that can recognise faces even in the dark!
Pearl ID is just what the developers are calling it. It could be a nickname or a codename only. The official name of the tech is yet unknown.
The same report also says that developers have also found reference to the code-name of the upcoming iPhone. For now, Apple has stuck to calling it D22.
“iOS developer Guilherme Rambo looked into the HomePod firmware as well and found out that the codename for the upcoming iPhone 8 is D22”
The codename for the face recognition feature is "Pearl ID". Codename for the bezel-less phone is "D22"
— Guilherme Rambo (@_inside) July 31, 2017
It’ll be interesting to see how this tech will be built into iPhone 8 design. There were already rumours that the next iPhone will not have any TouchID at all. Or, if it does have it, then the sensors will be on the back of the phone.
We don’t believe Apple will do away with Touch ID completely, therefore, we belong to that set of people who think that the Touch ID will be moved to the back. Especially if the phone is going to be bezel-less, like this code and many other rumours have said so far.
Seriously, there are so many rumours flying everywhere nowadays, that nothing seems valid anymore. And we can’t wait anymore!!