Face ID FUD

未经作者 John Gruber 允许转载。
www.daringfireball.net

Seemingly-sensational Apple story from Bloomberg today, reported by Alex Webb and Sam Kim, “Inside Apple’s Struggle to Get the iPhone X to Market on Time”:

Alex Webb and Sam Kim 今天在Bloomberg上发表了文章「不惜一切，确保 iPhone X 准时上市」，引起了巨大的轰动.

As of early fall, it was clearer than ever that production problems meant Apple Inc. wouldn’t have enough iPhone Xs in time for the holidays. The challenge was how to make the sophisticated phone — with advanced features such as facial recognition — in large enough numbers.
As Wall Street analysts and fan blogs watched for signs that the company would stumble, Apple came up with a solution: It quietly told suppliers they could reduce the accuracy of the face-recognition technology to make it easier to manufacture, according to people familiar with the situation.
初秋时，已有明显的迹象表明苹果无法为销售旺季及时提供足够的 iPhone X ，具体来说是脸部识别的配件供应不足。
华尔街分析师和一些苹果爱好者博客认为苹果将在此事上栽跟头，据了解此事的相关人士透露，苹果的做法是私下告知供应商他们将降低脸部识别技术的精确度，确保产量可以尽快达标。

That sounds terrible. But what exactly does it mean? Does it mean Face ID will create too many false positives? Does it mean it will be too slow? Does it mean there will be too many false negatives? Surprise surprise, Bloomberg doesn’t say.

听起来很恐怖，但是这到底意味着什么，意味着脸部识别将会出现很多错误？或者意味着识别很慢，或者是被动出现识别错误。非常神奇，但是 Bloomberg 并没有进一步说明。

Apple is famously demanding, leaning on suppliers and contract manufacturers to help it make technological leaps and retain a competitive edge. While a less accurate Face ID will still be far better than the existing Touch ID, the company’s decision to downgrade the technology for this model shows how hard it’s becoming to create cutting-edge features that consumers are hungry to try.
苹果是一家非常依赖供应商的公司，通过绑定指定制造商来实现技术领先，保持足够的竞争力。在精确度下降的 Face ID 将仍然领先于 Touch ID, 对于iPhone X, 苹果降低技术等级的决定表明了创造用户需求的独特特征是多么困难。

“Downgraded technology” sounds terrible. But which components, exactly, were “downgraded”?

降低技术等级听起来很吓人，但是具体是哪一些组件规格被降级了？

Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller said “Bloomberg’s claim that it reduced the accuracy spec for Face ID is completely false and we expect Face ID to be the new gold standard for facial authentication. The quality and accuracy of Face ID haven’t changed; it continues to be one in a million probability of a random person unlocking your iPhone with Face ID.”
苹果发言人Trudy Muller 回复： Bloomberg 报道的降低脸部识别精度，纯属谣言，我们期待 Face ID 成为脸部识别的行业标准。 Face ID 的品质和精度不会变化，继续保持百万分之一的失败率。

It is extraordinary for Apple to issue a blanket “this is completely false” statement on any news story. Apple, as policy, no-comments every news story, even when they know it’s bullshit. So either this story is particularly strong bullshit, or Apple is lying, on the record, under one of their own real names (as opposed to the anonymous “an Apple spokesperson” attribution).

苹果的惯例是：即便是狗屎，也很少发表对应的看法。然而此次非常罕见地针对该事件发布了完全是谣言的声明。因此，不管这个事情是否就是狗屎，或者是苹果在撒谎，苹果都进行了正面的应对（而不是进行匿名的回复）。

And what exactly is the point of Bloomberg’s story if, as reported, “Face ID will still be far better than the existing Touch ID”?

报道中声称：Face ID 仍然领先于 Touch ID ，那么 Bloomberg的故事究竟想表达什么？

To make matters worse, Apple lost one of its laser suppliers early on. Finisar Corp. failed to meet Apple’s specifications in time for the start of production, and now the Sunnyvale, California-based company is racing to meet the standards by the end of October. That left Apple reliant on fewer laser suppliers: Lumentum Holdings Inc. and II-VI Inc.
在生产初期，因为没有及时达到苹果的要求，苹果放弃了激光技术供应商中的 Finisar Corp，现在，总部位于加州的Sunnyvale 正在努力，期望在10月底达到苹果的要求。目前，苹果只剩下两个激光技术供应商：Lumentum Holdings Inc. and II-VI Inc.

Apple didn’t “lose” a supplier — Apple cut the supplier because they weren’t producing adequate yields.

苹果并没有失去一个供应商，只有在达不到要求的前提下，苹果才会放弃该供应商。

To boost the number of usable dot projectors and accelerate production, Apple relaxed some of the specifications for Face ID, according to a different person with knowledge of the process. As a result, it took less time to test completed modules, one of the major sticking points, the person said.
It’s not clear how much the new specs will reduce the technology’s efficacy.
据消息人士声称：为了确保有足够的可用的投影组件和加速生产，苹果降低了 Face ID 的技术规格，因此，对应模块的测试时间将会大幅减少，新的规格参数降低了多少技术的准确度，并不清楚。

Now we get to the real heart of the story. Did Apple adjust the specifications for the components, or just the testing parameters? And if “it’s not clear how much the new specs will reduce the technology’s efficacy”, what is the point of this story? When did Apple “relax” these specifications? Before or after the September event?

现在我们知道了这个故事的核心。苹果是否调整了对应组件的参数，或者是测试参数。如果不清楚新的参数到底影响了多少？那么这个故事的主旨是什么？苹果是什么时间开始调整参数的？发布会前还是发布会后？

To be clear, I have no idea whether Face ID works as advertised or not. I haven’t used it even once yet. Maybe it stinks, maybe it’s great, maybe it’s somewhere in between. But Bloomberg clearly doesn’t know either, yet they published this story which has a headline and summary — “The company let suppliers reduce accuracy of the phone’s Face ID system to speed up production” — which suggests that Face ID is going to stink because Apple’s suppliers couldn’t get enough good components out the door. If this weren’t merely clickbait, they’d be able to say how well it actually works.

说实话，我也不知道Face ID 是否如广告中的那样，我也从来没有使用过。也许很差，也许超赞，也许介于两者之间。但是 Bloomberg 明显也不知道，但他们仍然发布了标题如下的头条文章: 苹果让供应商降低 Face ID 系统的精度，以加速生产。 这个就暗示 Face ID 就会表现的很差，因为供应商无法生产出足够好的组件。如果这不仅仅是谣言，他们将说这个产品表现会有多好。