By launching his iPhone X, Apple unveiled biometric functionality using advanced facial recognition Face ID which surprised the mobile industry, used to the fingerprint reader.
In the wake of this announcement, the manufacturers of Android smartphones immediately became interested in the possibility of integrating this solution, deviating from the logic of a fingerprint reader housed under the screen, whose technical difficulties delayed the integration.
But, says the site Digitimes, after evaluating the solutions available or to come in terms of advanced facial recognition, the manufacturers of Android smartphones would mostly back off, given the costs imposed by such a solution if it had to be integrated in the short term.
There would therefore be a renewed interest in fingerprint readers under the screen. Digitimes evokes for example integration in the future Huawei Mate 11 of the end of the year for Qualcomm's ultrasonic fingerprint reading solution (SnapDragon Sense ID).
The device is more expensive (three times more all the same) than a standard fingerprint reader but it remains functional through 800 µm of glass (against 300 µm for other capacitive solutions) and could constitute a differentiating factor for a number of Asian smartphone manufacturers as of 2019.
With a 3D facial recognition module costing up to $ 60 on the iPhone, sales supposed to be mixed of the iPhone X despite this innovation and the risk of prosecution for patent infringement of solutions developed in-house, Chinese smartphone manufacturers Android would therefore no longer be as quick to replicate Apple's Face ID functionality … for the moment.
