Apple is working on in-screen fingerprint technology for this year’s iPhone (likely dubbed either the “iPhone 13” or, depending on how superstitious Apple is, the “iPhone 12S), according to The Wall Street Journal.
The article says the feature that would be available right alongside Face ID as a secondary biometric option. The Sellers Research Group (that’s me) thinks this makes sense.
And in September 2020, Apple was granted a patent (number 10,768,751) dubbed “electronic device including optical image sensor having metallization layers and related methods.” It indicated that Apple is still investigating the idea of incorporating Touch ID under the screen of an iPhone, an iPad, and perhaps even a Mac rather than having a separate Touch ID button.
Touch ID is an electronic fingerprint recognition feature, designed and released by Apple that allows users to unlock Apple devices, make purchases in the various Apple digital media stores (the iTunes Store, the App Store, and the Apple BookStore), and authenticate Apple Pay online or in apps.
In the patent data, Apple says that A fingerprint sensor in an electronic device may be “particularly advantageous for verification and/or authentication in an electronic device, and more particularly, a portable device, for example.” Such a fingerprint sensor may be carried by the housing of a portable electronic device, for example, and may be sized to sense a fingerprint from a single-finger.
