14 DAY TRIAL // Apple's Senior Vice President of Software Engineering Craig Federighi says that Apple has no plans "right now" to enable multi-user authentication with Face ID on the iPhone X.
Apple unveiled its 10th anniversary iPhone, the iPhone X, on September 12, 2017, during a special event that the Cupertino-based company held in the new Steve Jobs Theather at the new Apple Park headquarters. The gorgeous 5.8-inch iPhone X comes with innovative features such as a superb Super AMOLED display and facial recognition capabilities through Face ID, which replaces Touch ID.
Touch ID is still being used on older iPhone devices since its introduction with the iPhone 5 model back on September 21, 2012, and it's designed in such a way to allow users to register up to five different fingerprints, so when asked by a 33-year Apple fan if the company plans to offer something similar to Face ID, Apple's response was negative, at least for now.
"Currently we're focussing Face ID on single user authentication. (Even Touch ID's multi-finger support was really intended to enable a single iPhone owner to unlock the device with a finger and thumb on both hands, not to enable multi-user authentication)," said Craig Federighi. "We'll certainly keep your feedback in mind as we consider our plans to evolve Face ID in the future."
Multi-user Face ID authentication could be quite useful
The user's idea of multi-user Face ID support was that he and his wife could access each other's iPhone X devices so that no there are no secrets between them. But with Touch ID missing on the iPhone X, it's actually a very good idea for at least one family member to be able to unlock your device in case of an emergency. So maybe Apple will consider adding the ability for Face ID to support multiple users.
If Apple plans to add multi-user Face ID authentication it will do it through a software update specifically crafted for the iPhone X, as well as future iPhone models. Next year, during the WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) 2018, Apple will unveil the new features of the iOS 12 mobile operating system, so fingers crossed.