Face ID will likely come to iMac before a MacBook, says Gurman

MacBook Pro 2021 Notch (Image credit: iMore)

What you need to know

Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that Face ID will likely come to an iMac before it comes to an Apple notebook.
Mark Gurman was writing in his weekly Power On newsletter.
Apple's new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros have a notch but no Face ID.

Apple's Face ID is more likely to initially come to an iMac or external monitor than it is a MacBook of some sort says Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

Writing in his weekly Power On newsletter, Gurman says that the technology to put Face ID into a MacBook Pro isn't yet available — so expect it to arrive in an iMac before anywhere else.

At this point, the technology to embed Face ID into the thin MacBook displays doesn't exist. So if Face ID comes to the Mac, I think it will be on an iMac or external monitor first. Apple has definitely been working on this, but time will tell if they launch it.

While Apple's latest 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro notebooks do have notches, they don't currently house Face ID technology and this latest report suggests that it could be some time before they do.

In fact, Gurman says that Face ID "was in the cards for the original M1 iMac," but that things didn't pan out. It seems likely that the iMac will be the first to sport Face ID thanks to its thicker chassis than anything offered in a portable Mac.

Modern Macs may not have Face ID built in but they do offer Touch ID, giving people a form of biometric authentication that can be used in lieu of Face ID. However, the best Mac authentication method would likely be Face ID especially for those who use third-party keyboards and don't have ready access to the Mac's Touch ID sensor.

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too. Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.