Apple reportedly considered adding Face ID to 2021’s revamped 24-inch M1 iMac. Rumors about Face ID being rolled out to the Mac have been in circulation since 2020, when 9to5Mac reported that the macOS Big Sur beta indicated that Apple planned to support the facial recognition capability on the Mac.
The rumor has now extended to the upcoming 27-inch M1 iMac, which is expected to be released in the spring or summer of 2022.
However, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has said in his latest Power On newsletter that users should not expect the upgrade on MacBooks in the near future. He noted that we are likely to see the upgrade on an iMac or an external monitor first – because right now, the technology that would allow Apple to embed Face ID into thin MacBook displays does not yet exist.
Gurman suggested that it would be easier to integrate the components into the iMac display, because of the increased thickness. Apple would have to re-engineer the core technology to accommodate a Face ID scanner in a MacBook.
It seems, then, that we will be using Touch ID on our iMacs for a little while longer.