The projector flashes 30,000 dots onto the face which the phone uses...

[Mike Mercury]

Apple let suppliers reduce accuracy of the phone’s Face ID system to speed up production.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...market-on-time

As of early fall, it was clearer than ever that production problems meant Apple Inc. wouldn’t have enough iPhone Xs in time for the holidays. The challenge was how to make the sophisticated phone—with advanced features such as facial recognition—in large enough numbers.

As Wall Street analysts and fan blogs watched for signs that the company would stumble, Apple came up with a solution: It quietly told suppliers they could reduce the accuracy of the face-recognition technology to make it easier to manufacture, according to people familiar with the situation.

Apple is famously demanding, leaning on suppliers and contract manufacturers to help it make technological leaps and retain a competitive edge. While a less accurate Face ID will still be far better than the existing Touch ID, the company's decision to downgrade the technology for this model shows how hard it’s becoming to create cutting-edge features that consumers are hungry to try.

While Apple has endured delays and supply constraints in the past, those typically have been restricted to certain iPhone colors or less important offerings such as the Apple Watch. This time the production hurdles affected a 10th-anniversary phone expected to generate much of the company’s revenue.

About a month ago, Foxconn Technology Group pulled as many as 200 workers off an iPhone X production line. Apple was struggling to get sufficient components for the phone and needed fewer people to put it together. The main culprit, the people said, was the 3-D sensor that recognizes faces and unlocks the handset. Foxconn declined to comment.

“That technology is something we have been looking at for five years,” Chief Design Officer Jony Ive said in an onstage discussion hosted by The New Yorker this month. “We had prototypes that were this big,” he added, holding his hands about a foot apart. By the time Apple had greenlighted the iPhone X, the company was looking for technology that could be squeezed into a space a few centimeters across and millimeters deep.

Despite demanding the near impossible, Apple didn’t add extra time to get it right—giving suppliers the typical two-year lead time. The tight schedule underestimated the complexity of making and assembling exceedingly fragile components, said one of the people familiar with the production process. That left suppliers short on time to prepare their factories and explains why the iPhone X is being released a full six weeks later than the iPhone 8, said this person, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss an internal matter.



The 3-D sensor has three key elements: a dot projector, flood illuminator and infrared camera. The flood illuminator beams infrared light, which the camera uses to establish the presence of a face. The projector then flashes 30,000 dots onto the face which the phone uses to decide whether to unlock the home screen. The system uses a two-stage process because the dot projector makes big computational demands and would rapidly drain the battery if activated as frequently as the flood illuminator.

The dot projector is at the heart of Apple’s production problems. In September, the Wall Street Journal reported that Apple was having trouble producing the modules that combine to make the dot projector, causing shortages. The dot projector uses something called a vertical cavity surface-emitting laser, or VCSEL. The laser beams light through a lens known as a wafer-level optic, which focuses it into the 30,000 points of infra-red light projected onto the user’s face. The laser is made of gallium arsenide, a semiconductor material, and the lens is constructed of glass; both are fragile and easily broken. Precision is key. If the microscopic components are off by even several microns, a fraction of a hair’s breadth, the technology might not work properly, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

To make matters worse, Apple lost one of its laser suppliers early on. Finisar Corp. failed to meet Apple’s specifications in time for the start of production, and now the Sunnyvale, California-based company is racing to meet the standards by the end of October. That left Apple reliant on fewer laser suppliers: Lumentum Holdings Inc. and II-VI Inc.

To boost the number of usable dot projectors and accelerate production, Apple relaxed some of the specifications for Face ID, according to a different person with knowledge of the process. As a result, it took less time to test completed modules, one of the major sticking points, the person said.

It’s not clear how much the new specs will reduce the technology’s efficacy. Executives initially announced in September that there was a one in a million chance that an interloper could defeat Face ID to unlock a phone. Even downgraded, it will probably still be far more accurate than Touch ID, where the odds of someone other than the owner of a phone being able to unlock it are one in 50,000.

The 3-D sensor shortage is expected to end in early 2018. Even so, signs of weakness in iPhone 8 sales means Apple could sell fewer handsets than last year—despite all the fanfare surrounding the iPhone X.

[Cybercowboy]

Meanwhile the latest software updates have made old devices like the iPhone 5S and the iPad 3 that I own have weird battery issues. I'd say about half the time I plug them in to charge, I get the tone indicating they are charging and/or see the battery indicator come on the screen if I'm looking at it, only to find out hours later that it's not charged at all. And yes, I've seen this happen on different charging cables that have always been fine before. Also when iOS 11.0.2 came out it turned my 5S into a thermal generator/battery destroyer. I managed to change some arcane settings to alleviate the worst of it, but then they pushed out 11.0.3 and at least that has not been an issue really. Then there is the way reading the Kindle app on the iPad 3 really chews into the battery like it never did before, and it's not even running the latest software. I'd put it down to aging battery(s) but both devices started acting up literally at the same time.

Last night I had my iPhone charging on my nightstand (not the usual place for it.) Plugged it in, saw it started charging, went to bed. Around 5:00 AM I hear a somewhat strange sound from it. Look over at it, it's booting up. What? No indication any update was done at all. But it rebooted. And...the battery was at 74% after a night of charging. Plugged it in to the usual charger, where weirdness has happened lately too, and it charged right up.

[snide]

I still have no plans to buy an iPhone X.

[Cybercowboy]

Originally Posted by snide

I still have no plans to buy an iPhone X.

I honestly don't know what to do at this point. I'm going to have to get a new phone at some point in the next year or so. We are bundled right now with AT&T/DirecTV so switching to an Android phone isn't really all that appealing to me. But wow Apple is really trying to make me stray from their reservation with all this shit.

[DAB]

my 6s is just fine. 4 digit code to open.

[Datawiz]

Originally Posted by DAB

my 6s is just fine. 4 digit code to open.

Yours has the rotary dial option, right?

[Black94lt1]

Originally Posted by Cybercowboy

I honestly don't know what to do at this point. I'm going to have to get a new phone at some point in the next year or so. We are bundled right now with AT&T/DirecTV so switching to an Android phone isn't really all that appealing to me. But wow Apple is really trying to make me stray from their reservation with all this shit.

I don't know either, I really want to go for the X, but something tells me to just get and 8 and stick with the home button and fingerprint recognition

[Mike Mercury]

[Datawiz]

Originally Posted by Mike Mercury

[Mike Mercury]

Originally Posted by datawiz

Yours has the rotary dial option, right?

[mrvette]

Originally Posted by Mike Mercury

Wasn't a OPTION on MINE!!! I have a solid OAK wall phone with receiver on left side, crank on right, bells above and mouthpiece/mikerophone and note table in middle My Mother walks in, looks at it and says....'I remember when they installed that'.....

[MrPeabody]

Mrvette's cell phone has no battery problems. It's an older model. It burns coal.

[boracayjohnny]

Originally Posted by Waco

Perhaps sales are slow because they introduced the 8 and the X at the same time...yet only the "inferior" one was for sale.

Even if I wanted an 8, I'd wait till both hit the market to drop prices. If I wanted an X...why would I buy an 8?

The Apple Head Marketer is a dumbass for rolling out two models at once.

[Cybercowboy]

OK this is getting to be ridiculous. Plugged my iPhone in to charge around 10:00 PM last night. It was at about 88%, really did a good job yesterday on battery life even though I had a 30 minute phone call. Saw that it was charging, went to bed. Got up just now, it was at 21% and had a message on the front screen telling me I should check out the new Control Center. Unplugged it, started to poke around but said screw it, plugged it back in like 10 seconds after I unplugged it, it was at 18% and had a low battery warning. This is complete bullshit and it had *never* done anything like this until iOS 11.0.2 was pushed out.

So I decided to check the Battery app in Settings. Before I could get to it my phone started getting dozens of apparently very old messages. Finally after that stopped the Battery app said 52% was the phone app and 35% was the gmail app. Uh, sure, 52% of the phone app happened to take it down from 97% to say 91% yesterday. So when it stops charging and loses its mind, it also doesn't keep track of whatever is eating the battery because THAT WOULD MAKE IT ENTIRELY TOO OBVIOUS. I literally can't even right now.

[snide]

Originally Posted by Cybercowboy

OK this is getting to be ridiculous. Plugged my iPhone in to charge around 10:00 PM last night. It was at about 88%, really did a good job yesterday on battery life even though I had a 30 minute phone call. Saw that it was charging, went to bed. Got up just now, it was at 21% and had a message on the front screen telling me I should check out the new Control Center. Unplugged it, started to poke around but said screw it, plugged it back in like 10 seconds after I unplugged it, it was at 18% and had a low battery warning. This is complete bullshit and it had *never* done anything like this until iOS 11.0.2 was pushed out.

So I decided to check the Battery app in Settings. Before I could get to it my phone started getting dozens of apparently very old messages. Finally after that stopped the Battery app said 52% was the phone app and 35% was the gmail app. Uh, sure, 52% of the phone app happened to take it down from 97% to say 91% yesterday. So when it stops charging and loses its mind, it also doesn't keep track of whatever is eating the battery because THAT WOULD MAKE IT ENTIRELY TOO OBVIOUS. I literally can't even right now.

www.essential.com

[Millenium Vette]

Originally Posted by Cybercowboy

OK this is getting to be ridiculous. Plugged my iPhone in to charge around 10:00 PM last night. It was at about 88%, really did a good job yesterday on battery life even though I had a 30 minute phone call. Saw that it was charging, went to bed. Got up just now, it was at 21% and had a message on the front screen telling me I should check out the new Control Center. Unplugged it, started to poke around but said screw it, plugged it back in like 10 seconds after I unplugged it, it was at 18% and had a low battery warning. This is complete bullshit and it had *never* done anything like this until iOS 11.0.2 was pushed out.

So I decided to check the Battery app in Settings. Before I could get to it my phone started getting dozens of apparently very old messages. Finally after that stopped the Battery app said 52% was the phone app and 35% was the gmail app. Uh, sure, 52% of the phone app happened to take it down from 97% to say 91% yesterday. So when it stops charging and loses its mind, it also doesn't keep track of whatever is eating the battery because THAT WOULD MAKE IT ENTIRELY TOO OBVIOUS. I literally can't even right now.

When was the last time you wiped the phone and did a fresh install of everything? There is something boogered up on there.

[WalkerInTN]

My 6s+ has enough problems unlocking with the fingerprint ID, I can't imagine them doing facial recognition to unlock a phone. And why? Is the fingerprint not secure enough?

Wouldn't take the new phone if it was free.

[Cybercowboy]

Originally Posted by Millenium Vette

When was the last time you wiped the phone and did a fresh install of everything? There is something boogered up on there.

I'm pretty much where I need to do that. I haven't connected it to iTunes in at least two years.

[Cybercowboy]

Originally Posted by snide

www.essential.com

I've never heard of it. It looks interesting I will say that.

[DAB]

if you don't want others snooping thru your phone, why would you use fingerprint or face ID to unlock it. i'll stick with my 4 digit code. only i know it. you can't grab my finger with a warrant and open my phone, nor can you hold it in front of my face and open it.