Under-display Face ID for iPad Pro rumored, augmented reality selfies patented

Under-display Face ID could come to iPad Pro devices before iPhones, MacRumors is reporting, quoting display analyst Ross Young.

According to Young, the technology would be easier to introduce underneath a larger display with lower pixels per inch. The implementation would also be easier due to the lower manufacturing volume of iPad Pros compared to iPhones.

In April, product analyst Ming-Chi Kuo told iMore that Apple could launch an iPhone with under-display 3D face biometrics in 2024.

A month later, Apple was granted a U.S patent for the under-display bundling of optical fibers that can capture 2D or 3D biometric images. The company did not specify the devices the patent referred to.

In June, the firm was also granted a patent for “shortwave infrared optical imaging through an electronic device display.”

Apple granted 54 patents

More recently, the patent office published 54 newly granted patents for Apple, spotted by Patently Apple in the second half of July.

Among the documents is one that relates to “augmented reality” selfies and another one that involves the “implementation of biometric authentication.”

The first one describes software that would transform a selfie in the real world to a selfie in an augmented reality environment.

“An electronic device displays an application user interface that includes a representation of a field of view of one or more cameras,” reads the document.

“The representation of the field of view is updated over time based on changes to current visual data detected by the one or more cameras, and the field of view includes a physical object in a three-dimensional space.”

The second patent protects an array of biometric authentication functions.

Some examples involve biometric enrollment-process tutorials, others deal with application-based biometric authentication and some center on auto-filling biometrically secured fields. A full list of applications is available in the patent’s original text.

The publication of the new patents comes weeks after Apple submitted another series of inventions, among which was the possible implementation of Touch ID on the Apple Watch.

Article Topics

Apple  |  biometric authentication  |  biometrics  |  face biometrics  |  Face ID  |  facial authentication  |  patents  |  research and development  |  under display