Apologies for the length of this post—geez I rambled.
TL;DR - I’m wagering TouchID is dead and Apple’s motivation is making more money. 
I’ll take that bet.
Loser buys the beer if the other is ever in their part of the world.
IF...and that’s a big IF...If FaceID works as well as Apple claims it will, we won’t see another new phone from Apple with TouchID again. Successful FaceID means Apple doesn’t have to bother trying to get an under-display fingerprint sensor to work. That’s a whole lot of research they don’t have to invest in any longer and a whole bunch of space they don’t have to set aside. They’ve already professed how much more secure it is (less failure rates and chance of another individual accidentally defeating it). Putting TouchID back in their phones is a big backtrack—something Apple just doesn’t do, right or wrong.
I also think FaceID is a better solution across their entire product line. FaceID on the iPad and Macs, which have far more room along their displays that don’t require any sort of notch, make much more sense than trying to use TouchID. Trying to implement TouchID on an iMac or MacPro is much more problematic than just building FaceID right into the iMac display or their upcoming standalone display. You then have a consistent experience across all their products.
And if Apple does pull off the implementation of FaceID, most of the industry will be following suit. It may certainly not be practical from a cost standpoint to have it in lower end/midrange phones but the top end flagships will almost certainly adopt their own form of it. Hell, Samsung already has—they’ll just fine tune it to improve the experience and make is more seamless and secure. You don’t think they’d love to ditch what’s admittedly the biggest flaw of their 2017 flagships? No need to implement an underscreen solution (which appears to be pretty damn hard to do by everyone)—lots of money and research time to allocate somewhere else.
I think Apple sees the ultimate implementation as a seamless solution that appears almost non-existent. You would just pick up your phone and if it’s you, it’ll unlock in the background on the biometric security solution that’s been implemented. No need to put your finger in a specific spot, or hold it in an exact location in front of your face, etc—just pick it up, the phone autheticates in the background and you go about your business. This feels like Apple’s first step in that direction and if it works, it’ll beat ever other implementation and every other OEM will be trying to replicate it.
Like I mentioned at the start...lots of IFs but I think that’s the direction Apple is trying to go. Putting a FP sensor back in doesn’t move things forward and we all know Apple doesn’t look back.
[doublepost=1506648301][/doublepost]After reading through the usual bicker...I’m mean, ‘discussions’
, my thoughs on a few things I read.
Apple’s motivation for removal of the headphone jack is almost certainly all financial. They own a company known for producing speakers and headphones, most of which are wireless. Beats/Apple sell 5 different wireless headphones presently. What better way to ‘encourage’ sales of those products than to put them as front and center solutions for their flagship product. What’s been their hottest product for the past year? AirPods. And Apple claiming anything else is purely their ‘marketing speak.’ But you can be damn sure Samsung, Google, Microsoft or any other company would do the same thing IF they could pull it off. None of them have our best interests at heart and thinking they do is just being naive. Apple just has the nerve to do it becuase a good segment of their consumers will listen to them. Proof that they have a pretty good idea on their customer’s sentiments? Look how many iPhone 7/7 Plus they sold. Not having a headphone jack certainly bothers some people...but not most. They just use the earbuds in the box most of the time and after that initial adjustment, couldn’t give a crap any longer. They could also give a **** about audio quality considering the overwelming majority of people are streaming their music from a service like Spotify or Apple Music. The bitrates of those streams aren’t going to sound miraculously better over high end wired headphones.
Pretty much same goes for their storage options across their newest phones. They know that anybody who previously had 128GB of storage isn’t likely to move back down to a lesser amount so now they have to move up and spend $50-100 than they would have. Again, they’re trying to maximize profit and if they didn’t, they’re stockholders would go ******* on them. And again, just about any other company you can think of would do exactly the same thing if in Apple’s position.
Now, in no way should this been seen as me defending Apple—not doing anything of the sort. I’m just stating what to me seems painfully obvious. I personally couldn’t care less about the headphone jack as I haven’t used one on a device of mine in years as I hate being tethered by wires but that’s just me. The storage options—yup, that sucks as I presently have 128GB and can’t see myself coming close to needing 256GB anytime soon. But you know what I can do about it if I’m not happy with Apple’s products? Take my money elsewhere and so could any other Apple customer. Ecosystem lock in is a cop out excuse that in reality doesn’t apply to most people. Most iPhone owners don’t also have Macs and even fewer have an iPad, Mac, and iPhone. Less still have Apple Watches. The Apple TV is in what, last place amongst streaming boxes? Far more people stream their music from a source other than Apple. Most apps people use nowadays are free so having to ‘repurchase’ all their apps will likely cost very little. People keep buying iPhones because they like how they work and how they work with their friends and family, that’s it. It’s only us tech geeks/nerds who obsess over this stuff like this and are foolish enough to think our notions in these matters actually pertain to normal consumers.
