A day after Bloomberg dropped the bombshell that Apple has relaxed the quality guidelines for the Face ID hardware in the iPhone X to speed up the production, the smartphone has denied the report. Apple categorically says that Bloomberg report is completely false.
In a statement given to journalists, Apple said, "Bloomberg's claim that Apple has reduced the accuracy spec for Face ID is completely false. The quality and accuracy of Face ID haven't changed. It continues to be 1 in a million probability of a random person unlocking your iPhone with Face ID," the company said in a statement.
It is probably true that Apple is facing some production issues with the iPhone X. This phone, which is the 10th anniversary edition of the iPhone is expected to be in high demand this festival season in markets like the US and the Europe. And it seems Apple may struggle to meet the high demand. Earlier, analysts had projected that Apple would be able to ship around 40 million units of the iPhone X this quarter. But recently that number has been halved to 20 million by same analysts.
Bloomberg report had said that Apple was facing production issues because the cutting-edge components used for Face ID were very delicate and there were supply issues with them. It then noted that Apple was relaxing quality guidelines for the Face ID hardware and performance so that its hardware partners could speed up the production process.
"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," notes the Bloomberg report. "It's not clear how much the new specs will reduce the technology's efficacy."
However, now with Apple's statement there seems to be some doubts on the accuracy of the Bloomberg report. Or it is possible that both Apple and Bloomberg are right. Apple is mostly talking about the performance of the Face ID and how that was unchanged, whereas Bloomberg spoke of adjustments in the hardware of the Face ID. It is possible that even after the alleged adjustments, Apple Face ID can offer same performance that Apple promised during the launch of the iPhone X. At the launch event, Apple had said that Face ID was the most accurate ID mechanism for phones and that its error rate was one in a million compared to one in every 50,000 for the Touch ID.
iPhone X for Rs 89,000 in India
In India, the iPhone X costs Rs 89,000 and it will be on sale here from November 3, at the same time when the phone will go on sale in the global markets. However, the pre-orders for the phone will be opened from Friday at Apple authorised centres as well as the company's online partners.
Unlike the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus, which use a design borrowed from last year's iPhone 7 and then slightly tweaked, the iPhone X is a fresh iPhone design. It gets rid of the home button from the phone, and uses a display that has extremely thin bezels, similar to what phones like the LG G6 and the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2 use. It also uses an OLED panel instead of LCD that the iPhone has used so far.
The iPhone X has a screen that measures 5.8 inches, is powered by the Apple A11 processor, comes with a dual-camera setup similar to what we have in the iPhone 8 Plus, although its telephoto camera has a sharper F2.6 lens compared to F2.8 in the iPhone 8 variant.
In India, the iPhone X is quite expensive. However, in a move that would Apple's fans in India, the company on Thursday noted that its international warranty will be now available on the iPhone too. This was already available on the MacBook, iPad and other Apple products. Now, the iPhone too will be covered by it. So in case you want to buy the iPhone X in the US or in Hong Kong, where it is much cheaper, go ahead and do it. You will get warranty for it in India.