The 3D facial recognition feature is quite rare in the smartphone market and only a handful of devices boasts of this feature. Ever since iPhone X launched with a 3D face recognition feature instead of a fingerprint scanner, there have been speculations that the new iPad will also come with a 3D Face recognition feature. Recently, an iOS developer, Steve Troughton-Smith, found new evidence in the new iOS 12 test firmware: AvatarKit for iPad, which is the framework on which iPhone X Animoji 3D dynamic expressions depend.
New in iOS 12: AvatarKit comes to iPad. Still requires a TrueDepth camera to do face tracking, though, i.e. an iPad with Face ID pic.twitter.com/9TvP2vsP6X
— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) July 3, 2018
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Prior to this, only the iPhone X firmware included the AvatarKit framework, and the TrueDepth camera real-time face tracking was required to implement the Animoji expression. The evidence shows that iPads with similar hardware are in the works. This means that Apple is preparing a new look for the iPad, perhaps using a similar TrueDepth camera system like the iPhone X. According to KGI analysts, the new iPad will be released in the third quarter of this year.
The Face ID setup UI is finally working on iPad. Clearly not done yet as can be seen by the descriptions mentioning "iPhone". But it's a start 🙂 pic.twitter.com/PVQgfbne15
— Guilherme Rambo (@_inside) June 5, 2018
A follow-up tweet from @_inside suggests that the facial recognition feature user interface is already active on iPads but there are still a couple of bugs as it is still in the works.
