By Dan Moren
June 5, 2018 8:29 AM PT
Report: Multiple faces for Face ID, and Face ID for iPad
Note: This story has not been updated for several years.
A few quick tidbits about Face ID have come out over the past day: First up, a report from 9to5Mac that says Face ID in the iOS 12 beta includes an option to “Set Up An Alternative Appearance.”
While the phrasing of that feature is a little bit odd, the supposition is that it will allow two separate people to access a single device via Face ID. That would fix one of the most annoying issues with Face ID, which is that if you want somebody else to have access to your phone (a partner, for example, or a child) you need to tell them your passcode.1
This leads directly into another tidbit: developer Guilherme Rambo uncovered the UI for Face ID in the iPad build of iOS 12, lending credence that a tablet with the feature might appear later this year.
And, to bring it all together, people are far more likely to share an iPad than an iPhone, so allowing multiple people to use Face ID on the tablet would be a must.
- As someone who’s had less than consistent results with Face ID, I also wonder if this might provide some better way to train it? I’ll be interested to see how Apple describes it. ↩
[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]
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