We are still a good week away from the official release of the iPhone 7, but the interwebs have lately been abuzz with more leaks and rumors about next year’s iPhone release. 2017 will be the tenth anniversary of Apple’s iconic smartphone, and as a result it is believed that Apple held off making wholesale changes to this year’s iPhone models, saving some major new features for next year’s devices.
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Xintec, a Taiwan-based sensor packaging company affiliated with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), is going to start fulfilling orders for iris-recognition technology in Q4 of this year, according to new reports.
But there’s a question over how useful an iris scanner actually is for the average smartphone owner, and Apple doesn’t tend to roll out features that aren’t ready for mass adoption, and it would need to be much faster at recognising your eyeballs – current versions are just far too slow to be useful. With the removal of the home button, Touch ID will be embedded inside the display.
The news about the iris-scanning technology of the 10th anniversary iPhones comes days before the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus officially debut during Apple’s September 7 media event.
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Xintec is expected to enter mass production for iris-recognition chips in 2017, which will boost the backend house’s revenues for the year, the report cited market watchers as saying. But Xintec has declined to comment of particular products and customer orders. Specifically, Kuo said that Apple was working on an iris-scanning solution that would enable users to authenticate themselves (and perhaps transactions) with their face and/or eyes.
