Forget about all those gorgeous renders that depict the new design changes coming to the 2019 iPhone 11 series phones, as there’s a far more exciting rumor in town. A new report says the 2020 iPhone 11s models will come with a crazy next-gen feature that’s not currently found on any other smartphone. Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S10 was released earlier this year, bringing a brand new all-screen design, one that looks a lot better than alternatives. It also introduced another feature that nobody in the business has for the time being. Apple has been developing its own version of this tech for years, and while it looked like the company might end up never actually using it in its iPhones, this new report seems to indicate Apple may have reversed course.
The notch may not look as good as an Infinity-O display, but it still packs a feature that’s not available on any Samsung phone” 3D facial recognition that can be used for secure authentication and mobile payments. Come 2020, the iPhone will receive a bunch of upgrades, according to a Barclays report from Blayne Curtis seen by MacRumors, including 5G support and 3D-sensing rear cameras. More interestingly, the phones could feature “acoustic fingerprint technology,” which could turn the entire display into a Touch ID sensor to let iPhone users unlock their phones with a fingerprint once again.
Acoustic or ultrasonic fingerprint technology is what Samsung uses for its in-display fingerprint sensor on the Galaxy S10 series. Competing devices from top Android makers rely on optical sensors. Samsung’s sensor still only allows a single point of contact for reading one’s fingerprint, however. If this new report pans out, Apple’s tech will read your fingerprint no matter where you touch the screen.
Apple dropped Touch ID on iPhones last year, after introducing the first phone without a fingerprint sensor in September 2017. As expected, not everyone liked it, since some people think Touch ID is more convenient than Face ID. However, Apple had patents describing in-display fingerprint sensors that bounce sound waves off the screen and a fingerprint to authenticate users, well before the Galaxy S10 came out.
If this note is accurate, then Apple might reintroduce Touch ID next year, offering users a more advanced version than what’s available on Android phones, Galaxy S10 included. Curtis also claims that Apple will launch an iPhone SE 2 in 2020, with the phone expected to feature the same main internal components as the iPhone 8.
The 2019 iPhones, meanwhile, are expected to deliver the same design as their predecessors, the same report claims. The report notes that the phones will get triple-lens rear cameras and will lose 3D Touch support. The iPhone 11R, or whatever Apple ends up calling it, will get 4GB of RAM instead of 3GB in the iPhone XR. Finally, all phones should hit manufacturing at some point in July or August, according to the report.
