14 DAY TRIAL // Apple pioneered 3D face recognition with the debut of the iPhone X, and several companies followed in its footsteps, eventually bringing similar technologies to their devices.
Samsung itself has had basic iris and face recognition features on its flagship devices for more than two years, but just as expected, the company is now exploring ways to make these more secure and match the performance of Apple’s implementation.
While bringing 3D face recognition to its high-end models wouldn’t be quite a huge surprise, there’s no doubt this would lead to accusations of Samsung copying Apple. But by the looks of things, Samsung actually planned to do this a long time ago, as a patent filed in 2014 proves.
Describing a biometric camera that allows for iris recognition and 3D face recognition, the patent was recently approved by the US Patent Office, showing that Samsung could indeed equip its models with such capabilities. Just like the iPhone X facial recognition system, Samsung’s works in the dark and also powers various other features, like eye tracking.
Possibly coming next year
As to when we could see this feature going live, 2019 would probably be the safest bet. With the Note 9 just around the corner, there’s basically no chance for Samsung to implement such a major change on such a short notice.
At the same time, the next Galaxy S model would celebrate the 10th anniversary of this flagship model, so Samsung wants to mark this occasion with the debut of several groundbreaking technologies, including what could possibly be a fingerprint sensor embedded into the glass and this facial recognition system.
The Galaxy S10 could see daylight in February, according to the most recent speculation, though details in this regard aren’t yet confirmed.
Meanwhile, Apple is planning to expand 3D facial recognition to all its iPhones launching in 2018, with the lineup to include an iPhone X successor, a Plus-sized model, and a more affordable device with a 6.1-inch LCD screen.