When Apple put out the firmware for its upcoming HomePod smart speaker, people quickly began to poke around, looking for more information about what to expect from Apple’s response to the Amazon Echo and Google Home. But further digging has also revealed some information about the iPhone 8, the top-end phone Apple will reportedly unveil this fall in addition to the iPhone 7S and iPhone 7S Plus.
Well-known iPhone developer Steven Troughton-Smith was the first to notice that the HomePod firmware contained information about the upcoming infrared face-recognition unlock, code-named “Pearl,” that will be found on the iPhone 8.
Infrared, which works well in low-light situations, would solve current problems with many facial recognitions, the need for a user’s face to be well-lit. It’s unclear at this point if facial recognition would replace Apple’s Touch ID fingerprint scanner or supplement it.
Meanwhile, Brazilian developer Guilherme Rambo found an icon for a phone, code-named “D22,” that seems to represent the iPhone 8. There have been plenty of mock-ups already in circulation, but they’ve all been educated guesses, based on putting together supply-chain leaks, rumors, and speculation — this is the first image from Apple itself.
The image confirms much of the speculation up to this point. The only major bezel on the phone is a notch at the top, which will likely contain the phone’s front-facing camera, sensors, and speaker for phone calls.
This likely isn’t how Apple wanted to reveal the design of its phone — which may be priced anywhere from $1,000 to $1,400 on release. Popular Twitter account @ATP_Tipster1, ostensibly run by someone within Apple, speculated that the iPhone 8 information was due to Apple accidentally releasing to the public the update meant only for hardware developers currently working with HomePods.
Regardless, as Troughton-Smith put it in another tweet, “A lot of people at Apple are going to have a nasty Monday …”
(Top image courtesy of iDrop News.)
