What cost of convenience are you referring to? How does adding a second biometric option make it less convenient for users?
One uses just the face. It's simple to explain and understand - Apple never uses tech jargon like 'second biometric option'. For Face ID they used the term: "the phone recognizes your face". For Touch ID they said: "Unlock your phone by pressing the home button, like you always do - it will recognize your fingerprint".
That is so much easier to understand. But having two? How do you even market that? "The phone sees your face and scans your fingerprint and then matches the two to verify it's you"? What happens if one of these fails (and it happens)? Does the phone tell you - look, your fingerprint is fine, but move your face closer to check again. Or does it just say - nope, not you - and you have to figure out if your finger is too sweaty or you looked at the phone from a weird angle?
Nothing about that makes sense in the Apple world. It's much more a Samsung thing (not saying that as a criticism, it's just how things are).
So that users have a choice. For increased security, use both for continuous biometric authentication. It's really not as difficult as you make it.
Well, for one thing, I can tell you I moved to iOS from Android because I didn't want to make choices for simple things on my phone.
And I'm into tech - what about others? Not everyone is a tech enthusiast. Let's say I had this choice. Do I want to use one or both? Increased security you say - hm, is just using Face ID not secure enough then? If it's fine, are there any downsides to having both? So, which one should I use? .... I just want it to work. I want Apple to decide for me, I want to forget all about it.
For some people, choice is what they want. Samsung and others cater to this crowd. Apple does not do 'choice'.
As I said, this was always the Apple's way. While I do agree with their choices for the most part, what I think about them and what you think is irrelevant for this conversation. It's not about whether having this is good or bad, complicated or simple - it's about how Apple designs their products.
This has nothing to do with cynicism. We've seen multiple Apple patent filings from as early as 2013 for in-display fingerprint authentication. In fact, Apple filed in-display fingerprint patents every year since 2013.
Exactly. They file patents for everything. They probably considered it as one of the options and patended it. It was considered while brainstorming first designs of the next generation of iPhones, years ago - because they start to think about these things early. They probably have at least some ideas for next 3-4 generations of iPhones.
They considered all the options. They probably made some prototypes, you know, like parts of the assembly attached to a Mac in a lab somewhere. They had a few camera modules and some software that simulated Face ID, they had something for in-display Touch ID. These prototypes were not even close to be put into phones, but good enough to make a decision where to invest time and effort for the next 3 years. So they tried all the options, then they decided - we think this face thing is the way to go, we should start developing that.
