2021 iPhones to Feature In-Display Touch ID: Ming-Chi Kuo

“It’s a rare scenario in which Apple would be following the lead of its rivals, with other smartphone makers already launching devices featuring both facial recognition and in-display fingerprint scanning capabilities.”

Renowned mobile market analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is once again making headlines with a bold prediction for the future of the iPhone, asserting in a new report that he expects Apple to deliver in-display fingerprint authentication in iPhone models starting in 2021.

That will mark the comeback of Touch ID, the trailblazing fingerprint authentication system launched by Apple in 2013 that was abandoned in 2017’s iPhone X in favor of the new Face ID 3D facial recognition system. Apple has subsequently replaced Touch ID with Face ID on all of its latest iPhone models, but Ming-Chi Kuo believes an in-display version of Touch ID will return alongside Face ID in about two years’ time.

It’s a rare scenario in which Apple would be following the lead of its rivals, with other smartphone makers already launching devices featuring both facial recognition and in-display fingerprint scanning capabilities. Ming-Chi Kuo suggests that Apple is currently grappling with technical issues such as power consumption and production rates, but that these obstacles are likely to be overcome in the course of the next year.

The analyst also speculates that Apple’s in-display Touch ID solution will use Qualcomm’s ultrasonic fingerprint scanning technology, which may help to make the system more sophisticated than the optical in-display sensors that are currently hitting the market.

The speculation comes in the wake of a report from the Global Times suggesting that Apple is developing an iPhone specifically for the Chinese market that will eschew the expensive Face ID system in favor of an in-display fingerprint scanning system. And it arrives soon after Ming-Chi Kuo released a report indicating that the 2020 iPhones will have a much smaller notch, prompting speculation that this might point to the abandonment of the Face ID sensors currently housed in the notch (though Ming-Chi Kuo did not speculate as such himself).

Apple, as always, has said nothing about its plans for future iPhones. But given Ming-Chi Kuo’s track record of analysis based on supply chain information, his speculation is worth considering.

Source: 9to5Mac