Apple once thought of giving M1 iMac Face ID support, but never worked on technology

The M1 iMac, which arrived last year, could have come with the useful Face ID technology. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman has highlighted in his newsletter that Apple was once willing to equip the iMac from last year with Face ID, but the redesign is why it did not go ahead with the plan. A number of instances previously pointed out the possibility of a Face ID-enabled iMac, and the iMac seemed like the best product in Apple's Mac range for the Face ID introduction. That is because it is the thickest Mac with a built-in display, Gurman said.

The first rumour about Face ID reaching the Mac surfaced back in 2020, when several internal codes in the macOS Big Sur beta 3 software intended support for Face ID. Words like "PearlCamera", "FaceDetect", and "BioCapture" were found. Apple uses all these words to refer to Face ID and associated technology on the iPhone, so their popup in the Mac software gave enthusiasts some hope that Face ID will finally arrive on a Mac. It could have been possible last year with the M1 Mac, but Apple chose to ditch the plan in favour of finessing the new design. It reportedly never began working on the technology related to Face ID on a Mac.

While it is not clear what kept Apple from launching Face ID, the redesign, which already pushed back the launch schedule, could very well be the biggest reason, if not the only one. And if it did not happen on the iMac, it cannot possibly happen on the MacBook, at least not in the near future. According to Gurman, the MacBooks have very thin screens and there is no technology right now to implement Face ID into that setup. And Gurman is not hopeful about an imminent launch of Face ID on a MacBook either. He said that MacBook enthusiasts should not expect this feature to arrive anytime soon.

But a future iMac or an external display, such as a Pro Display XDR, has high chances of getting facial recognition, according to Gurman. "Apple has definitely been working on this, but time will tell if they launch it," he mentioned in the newsletter. Apple is said to be working on an iMac Pro with a 27-inch display and a new external display, both of which could launch later this year. If Apple has managed to implement the Face ID technology on a Mac, this year's iMac could be the first one to allow you to unlock it using your face.