General Intelligence
An iPhone for the Coronavirus Era
Plus, an A.I. program to assess your compatibility with potential roommates
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Apple has spent the past three years convincing its customers that facial recognition is the future: It’s faster and more secure than using a fingerprint, and the smaller sensors give more real estate for a bigger screen.
That may all still be true in the long term, but now the company’s two largest markets, the United States and China, have been advised to wear face masks in public to curb the spread of the coronavirus, rendering Apple’s millimeter-precise facial scan useless.
As its customers try to trick their $1,000-plus devices into recognizing their faces with a mask, Apple released the iPhone SE this week, formally extending the life of the company’s humble fingerprint sensor.
Apple plans years in advance for product releases, meaning this was planned months before the coronavirus pandemic gripped the world. But as it so happens, the new iPhone SE is now the only device in…
