Samsung gives up on competing with Face ID for Galaxy S10

Samsung might have beaten Apple to iris scanning and facial recognition, but it certainly isn’t doing a better job.

Face ID is considered to be far more advanced than anything available on Android today. A new report claims Samsung is actually giving up on competing technology and returning to fingerprint scanners for the Galaxy S10.

Samsung first delivered iris scanning and facial recognition with the Galaxy S8 series last year. But unlike Face ID, the South Korean company’s technology can be slow and unreliable. One experiment found that the Galaxy S8 could be fooled by a photograph.

Rather than investing more into making its facial recognition system safer, Samsung is ditching it entirely, according to a new report out of Korea.

Samsung will focus on fingerprint scanning for Galaxy S10

The Bell reports that Samsung will return to fingerprint scanners exclusively for the Galaxy S10 next year.

It will become one of the first smartphone makers to integrate a fingerprint scanner into its display, negating the need for a sensor on the back of the phone where some users find them difficult to reach.

Some reports claimed Apple wanted to put Touch ID into the iPhone X’s OLED screen, but gave up on this shortly before the device entered mass production as a result of manufacturing difficulties. It then switched focus and made Face ID its primary solution.

Face ID was always the chosen one

However, Apple has since revealed that these rumors are false, and that it had always planned to replace Touch ID entirely with Face ID.

Whatever the case may be, fingerprint scanning remains the security solution of choice for millions of smartphone users — many iPhone fans won’t upgrade to iPhone X simply because it doesn’t have Touch ID — and having it inside a screen is incredibly cool.

It seems unlikely that Samsung would give up entirely on the iris and facial recognition technology it has spent years marketing, though. We’ll have to wait and see what the Galaxy S10 brings next spring.