Apple took almost all its fans by surprise when they introduced the iPhone 7 without a headphone jack in September last year. Consumers took the news with mixed feelings — some trolling the upgrade while others applauding the company for delivering something different. Just when we thought that Apple was done bringing about any major changes to its device, a new rumour suggests that they now plan on eliminating another standard feature of the iPhone device flagship. This time it’s the Home Button.
MacRumors claims that KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo released a research report that hints at Apple’s plans to remove the device’s physical home button in favour of a thumbprint sensor embedded in the screen. Apple has long been rumoured to adopt a bezel-free, edge-to-edge screen design with its upcoming smartphone flagship. Therefore, the new update doesn’t come across as surprising.
Kuo further expects facial tracking sensors with the upcoming devices. These sensors could be used to scan user’s faces as a means to verify identification. He feels that fingerprint ID tech will “ultimately be replaced by a facial recognition system” in an effort to make the iPhone’s security stable.
"However, if the technical challenges cannot be overcome, we believe a combination of fingerprint and facial recognition is another possible solution," he writes in the report. Once the tech is developed in future models, he predicts that transactions made on future iPhones will be verified using "a combination of the two steps of bio-recognition."
