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Apple placed a bet on facial recognition as its biometric solution of choice ever since it replaced the Touch ID fingerprint scanner with the Face ID kit built into the iPhone X notch.
The Face ID set has shrunk significantly since then, and Apple even managed to get rid of the notch since the iPhone 14 Pro series. Still, the space it occupies on an iPhone screen is way larger than front cameras on, say, Samsung phones take, regardless of whether Apple tries to mask it with Dynamic Island shenanigans.
Samsung, in its turn, has reportedly found a way to replicate Apple’s Face ID function, but with just the power of its punch-hole front camera mated with some AI image reading voodoo.
While this facial recognition technology was said to come with the next Galaxy S25 Ultra, a leaker now claims that Samsung will only introduce its so-called PollarID function with the S26 Ultra after it.
It is impossible for this technology to be used in S25U. It will be in S26U. The reason is that Samsung is slowly innovating to imitate Apple, and to confirm this, they were able to make 50mp 3x in S24U instead of S25U, and it seems that all of this is in order to save money. https://t.co/lyGID3kDqA
— Sawyer Galox (@Sawyergalox) June 8, 2024
Needless to say, such a PolarID release timeframe would change the whole calculation in terms of its superiority over Apple’s Dynamic Island solution. Apple is reportedly preparing a big iPhone redesign that will make it a true all-screen handset, and might have moved to a punch-hole and/or under-screen sensor solutions by then, too.
Still, Samsung will likely keep offering the fingerprint recognition tucked under the S26 Ultra display, too, giving users more biometrics choices than Apple.