Analyst: Face ID coming to the Mac in a couple of years

In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says that Face ID will come to the Mac in a couple of years. He adds that he thinks Apple’s goal is to move all its products to the technology.

“It won’t happen this year, but I’d bet Face ID on the Mac is coming within a couple of years,” Gurman writes. “I expect all iPhones and iPads to transition to Face ID within that timeframe, too. Eventually, a camera embedded in the screen would help differentiate Apple’s pricier devices by eliminating the notch at the top. The facial recognition sensor gives Apple two central features: security and augmented reality. Touch ID, more convenient or not, only provides the former.”

The Sellers Research Group thinks Gurman is spot on. Tere’s little doubt that Face ID will come to the Mac line; the only question is “when?” Apple has been granted patents for desktops and laptops with the facial recognition software since 2017.

That year, patent number 20170193282 for “presence sensing” described how Macs in sleep mode could use their camera to look for faces. If the desktop or laptop spotted a face, it would use facial recognition to wake the Mac if the user is identified.

In March 2020, Apple was granted a patent for a “light recognition module for determining a user of a computing device.” It’s for “a light pattern recognition module that is capable of emitting a predetermined pattern of light at the user, and subsequently detecting a pattern of light that is reflected by the user for authenticating the user.” And that’s how Face ID works on the iPhone and iPad.

Also, in the Power On newsletter, Gurman expects the event unveiling the iPhone 13 will be a virtual one due to the rise in COVID cases due to the delta variant.