Beautiful Virgin Islands

Monday, Jun 23, 2025

This is the one feature the iPhone 13 desperately needs

This is the one feature the iPhone 13 desperately needs

Widespread mask-wearing has rendered Face ID. Apple already has the solution at its fingertips
Earlier this year I purchased an iPhone 12 Pro, a £1,000 smartphone that is, frankly, a device not fit for purpose in 2020.

The iPhone 12, much like every Apple smartphone since 2017’s iPhone X, has just one method of biometric authentication: Face ID. However, as a result of the pandemic sweeping the globe, the majority of us are now wearing masks whenever we leave the house, which has been confounding our smartphones’ built-in facial recognition software. And, despite inbound vaccines, it will be some time before as a society we are mask-free, and even then there is no guarantee we will return to such a culture post Covid.

Face ID uses a TrueDepth camera and infrared technology to project and analyse over 30,000 invisible dots to create a depth map of your face and to study the features around the eye, nose, mouth and ears. Apple’s neural engine transforms the depth map and infrared image into a mathematical representation and compares that representation with the enrolled facial data.

While, according to Apple, “Face ID automatically adapts to changes in your appearance, such as wearing make-up or growing facial hair”, mask-wearing has made the feature redundant.

Although the company has made changes to the system so that your iPhone will now prompt you to enter your passcode if it detects you’re wearing a mask, tasks such as unlocking your smartphone and paying for your shopping using Apple Wallet have become frustrating. The other option is to pull your mask down every time you need to use your phone, but that's neither hygienic nor practical.

It isn’t just Face ID that has been rendered useless as a result of widespread maks-wearing; ongoing testing by the US National Institue of Standards and Technology (NIST) show the efficacy of facial recognition algorithms used in everything from Customs systems and surveillance cameras has declined as a result.

Many are trying to solve this problem. In April, for example, researchers posted an image dataset to GitHub featuring 1,200 pictures culled from Instagram selfies. They tagged the images to identify people wearing medical masks, non-medical masks or no mask to support creative solutions for Covid-challenged facial recognition problems.

Separately, researchers at Wuhan University in China compiled and posted to GitHub a larger dataset that consists of 5,000 cleaned and labelled images of masked faces of 525 different individuals, along with images of 90,000 unmasked faces, in order to train future facial recognition algorithms.

However, it’s unlikely the facial recognition technology we use on our smartphones will be able to adapt – not unless we’re willing to compromise on both performance and our personal security.

“Facial recognition algorithms can be trained using data from individuals wearing masks," says Huseyin Atakan Varol, professor of Nazarbayev University School of Engineering and Digital Sciences, and founding director of the Institute of Smart Systems and Artificial Intelligence. However, due to the increased occlusion of the facial features by the mask, the performance of the face recognition would be worse than the facial recognition conducted with a full set of facial features.

Andrew Bud, founder and CEO at iProov, adds: “It's much harder to assure the genuine presence of somebody wearing a mask because so much information about the face is hidden. A mask has no definable characteristics – it hides so much information that's important for the assurance that this is a genuine person.”

Bud doesn’t think, in future iPhones, this will be a problem “because we're not going to be wearing masks for prolonged periods,” while Ryan Gosling, commercial director at Callsign, suggests phone makers should implement mobile behavioural biometrics as a way to bypass the problem.

“It uses gestures to positively identify a user – such as a swipe across the screen or entering in a One Time Passcode (OTP) – and it can be as passive or interactive as required,” he says. “The user’s behaviour creates a unique profile and can be used to positively identify them in future.

“This is an ideal workaround or replacement for facial biometrics, as behavioural biometrics only requires the user to have their hand available to swipe across their mobile screen or enter an OTP to authenticate themselves.”

There’s a simpler solution, of course: bring back Touch ID. Apple has already shown us it’s capable of doing so without bringing back the home button, as the recently announced iPad Air features Touch ID mapped to its power button. What’s more, under-screen fingerprint recognition technology is now commonplace, featuring on the latest devices from OnePlus and Samsung.

It’s likely the re-implementation of Touch ID simply wasn’t possible with the iPhone 12. Apple typically finalised the design of its next-generation devices 12 to 18 months before they head to production, and with the pandemic not even a year old at the time, it’s unlikely the company had the window to make such as drastic change.

But with the iPhone 13 the company has no excuse. While some people think otherwise, mask-wearing is likely here to stay for the foreseeable future, and technology should be making our lives more convenient, not less.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
Starmer Invites Innovators to Join Government Talent Scheme
UK Economy’s Strong Opening Quarter Shows Signs of Cooling
Harrods Seeks Court Order to Secure Al Fayed Estate for Victims
BA and Singapore Airlines Cancel Dubai Flights Amid Middle East Tensions
Trump Faces Backlash from MAGA Base Over Iran Strikes
Meta Bets $14 B on Alexandr Wang to Drive AI Ambitions
WATCH: Israeli forces show the aftermath of a massive airstrike at Iran's Isfahan nuclear site
FedEx Founder Fred Smith, ‘Heart and Soul’ of the Company, Dies at 80
Chinese Factories Shift Away from U.S. Amid Trump‑Era Tariffs
Pimco Seizes Opportunity in Japan’s Dislocated Bond Market
Labubu Doll Drives Pop Mart to Status as China’s Most Valuable Toy Maker
Global Coal Demand Defies Paris Accord Goals
We have new information and breaking details to share about what is shaping up to be a historic air campaign tonight
Six Massive Bombs Dropped on Fordow; Trump: 'A Historic Moment for the U.S., Israel, and the World'
Fordow: Deeply Buried Iranian Enrichment Site in U.S.–Israel Crosshairs
United States Conducts Precision Strikes on Iran’s Nuclear Sites
US strikes Iran nuclear sites, Trump says
Pakistan to nominate Trump for Nobel Peace Prize.
BBC Demands Perplexity AI Immediately Stop Using Its Content
Telegram Founder: I Will Leave My Fortune to Over 100 of My Children
Political Turmoil Resurfaces in Belgium Amid Economic Concerns
Fed policymakers divided on timing of interest rate cuts
Trump signals imminent agreement with Harvard University
Inheritance tax referendum alarms Swiss billionaire community
Japan cancels bilateral security meeting amid US defence demands
AI skeptic Emily Bender warns that ‘the emperor has no clothes’
Israel Confirms Assassination of Quds Force Commander in Tehran
16 Billion Login Credentials Leaked in Unprecedented Cybersecurity Breach
Senate hearing on who was 'really running' Biden White House kicks off
Iranian Military Officers Reportedly Seek Contact with Reza Pahlavi, Signal Intent to Defect
FBI and Senate Investigate Allegations of Chinese Plot to Influence the 2020 Election in Biden’s Favor Using Fake U.S. Driver’s Licenses
Vietnam Emerges as Luxury Yacht Destination for Ultra‑Rich
Plans to Sell Dutch Embassy in Bangkok Face Local Opposition
China's Iranian Oil Imports Face Disruption Amid Escalating Middle East Tensions
Trump's $5 Million 'Trump Card' Visa Program Draws Nearly 70,000 Applicants
DGCA Finds No Major Safety Concerns in Air India's Boeing 787 Fleet
Airlines Reroute Flights Amid Expanding Middle East Conflict Zones
Elon Musk's xAI Seeks $9.3 Billion in Funding Amid AI Expansion
Trump Demands Iran's Unconditional Surrender Amid Escalating Conflict
Israeli Airstrike Targets Iranian State TV in Central Tehran
President Trump is leaving the G7 summit early and has ordered the National Security Council to the Situation Room
Taiwan Imposes Export Ban on Chips to Huawei and SMIC
Israel has just announced plans to strike Tehran again, and in response, Trump has urged people to evacuate
Netanyahu Signals Potential Regime Change in Iran
Juncker Criticizes EU Inaction on Trump Tariffs
EU Proposes Ban on New Russian Gas Contracts
Analysts Warn Iran May Resort to Unconventional Warfare
Iranian Regime Faces Existential Threat Amid Conflict
Energy Infrastructure Becomes War Zone in Middle East
UK Home Secretary Apologizes Over Child Grooming Failures
×