Thursday in CE: Forget Face ID, Apple Wants Full Touchless Gestures

By Patrick McCarthy

The biggest ~~gimmick~~ feature of the iPhone X is, by and large, Face ID technology. It not only increased the screen-to-body ratio by removing the home button, it added the infamous notch to the smartphone ecosystem. Unlike Android's, mostly rudimentary face unlock - a glorified picture match - Apple crammed an IR blaster that made the shape and nuances of your face the unlock button.

And it seems that the success of Face ID has prompted Apple to begin working on ways to use your phone without touching it at all.

A new report by Bloomberg indicates that feature iPhones will ship with "touchless gesture controls" which would allow iPhone users to "perform some tasks by moving their finger close to the screen without actually tapping it." Although some might argue that this is nothing new - read Google's Project Soli - Apple actually patented a touchless gesture control in 2013 to "to create and manipulate 3D objects using gestures made above a touchscreen’s surface."

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Patrick McCarthy Author's page Patrick is a Senior Editor for CT Lab at NAPCO Media.