Paul Morris·

Apple To Reportedly Sell Wireless Charger For iPhone 8 Separately

Ming-Chi Kuo of KGI Securities is out with new report detailing iPhone 8 Touch ID situation, wireless charging, and more. Here are the details.

There’s typically plenty of information flying around in the run-up to the release of a new iPhone. A lot of that information is pure conjecture and ultimately turns out to be as far removed from reality as possible, whereas some, like the well-researched and well-informed research notes from Ming-Chi Kuo and KGI Securities, typically tend to be on the money.

We now have some additional information on Kuo’s most recent research note which suggests that Apple’s iPhone 8 will definitely not ship with any type of fingerprint detection. The first round of leaked information from that note was somewhat ambiguous in its wording, suggesting that iPhone 8 would not come with a Touch ID sensor embedded into the virtual Home button under the OLED panel, but there was no real clarity on whether or not that meant that Touch ID would be eradicated altogether. The latest information definitely clears up that confusion:

As the OLED iPhone will not support fingerprint recognition, we think it may have to rely on facial recognition to ensure security. As such, we believe Apple (US) will be very demanding as regards the quality of 3D sensing, thereby increasing the difficulties in hardware production and software design.

So it seems that Touch ID fingerprint detection will be entirely removed from iPhone 8 in favor of advanced facial recognition thanks to the new-found 3D depth sensing capabilities of the forward-facing camera.

Information within the same report also suggests that all three of Apple’s 2017 iPhones will support the WPC- wireless charging standard, and that they will be manufactured with glass bodies and metal frames to facilitate that, but that the new feature will be opened up to consumers via an additional accessory that will need to be purchased separately.

In contrast to an earlier report by Barclays analyst Blayne Curtis, Kuo also predicts that Apple’s new iPhone 8 will ship with the standard 5W power adapter with USB-A that currently goes out with existing iPhones. Curtis predicted that a 10W adapter with USB-C would form part of the iPhone 8 package, but that doesn’t appear to be the case if this report is to be believed.

Finally, Kuo also believes that the new hardware will ship with integrated DRAM to improve speed by up to 15-percent in order to make augmented reality more performant on all devices.

(Via: MacRumors, Top Image: iPhone 8 concept render)

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