Apple is will feature in-screen fingerprint feature for the iPhone 13, alongside Face ID as a secondary biometric option, according to The Wall Street Journal‘s Joanna Stern.
According to Stern, she heard from a former employee who said the company was working with optical sensors for in-screen fingerprint reading, which “can be more reliable” than an ultrasonic solution.
The Touch ID home buttons that Apple has used in the iPhone, iPad, and Macs, are capacitive. Capacitive sensors use a series of tiny capacitors to create a fingerprint data map that’s hard to trick as it’s not using a straight fingerprint image.
Optical in-display fingerprint sensors work using light, and in Android phones that have adopted this technology, the screen lights up with a fingerprint icon where you’re meant to place a finger to provide light, and a camera creates an image of your finger. Optical sensors can be easy to fool because they’re using a 2D image.
Stern says that according to her source, whichever solution Apple decides to adopt will need to meet the security standards of its current Touch ID Home button, so there will be no downgrade in functionality.
