Apple planning to put a rear facing 3D sensor in 2019 iPhone models

Apple is working on a new 3D sensor system for 2019 iPhone models a technology different from the TrueDepth sensor that it uses in the iPhone X models, Bloomberg reports. The technology is in development at Sony, Panasonic, Infineon Technologies, and STMicroelectronics.

The TrueDepth technology currently projects a pattern of 30,000 laser dots onto a user's face and measures the distortion to generate an accurate 3D image for authentication. The planned rear-facing camera sensor would instead use a time-of-flight approach that calculates the time it takes for a laser to bounce off surrounding objects to create a three-dimensional picture of the environment.

Notably, the TrueDepth technology would remain on the front camera. The new time-of-flight system would only be added to the back-facing camera. The technology testing is in the early stages and could end up being ditched from the final version of the iPhone, the report said.

Bloomberg says the motivation for the new rear 3D sensors is augmented reality. Virtual objects would be able to be positioned more realistically if the device knew about the location of physical objects and barriers in a room.