It looks like Google’s upcoming Pixel 6 smartphone will get a long-awaited upgrade. A few years after Samsung did this with the Galaxy S10, it seems that Google is finally going to follow suit.
It’s not sure, but the evidence comes from the latest developer of Android 12, and operating system previews have previously revealed secrets of non-released Pixel devices, so this is definitely a possibility.
As first reported by XDA Developers, developer kdrag0n found a bunch of new classes in the SystemUIGoogle app, one of which is called “UdfpsControllerGoogle”. This may sound like gibberish, but UDFPS is a fairly common abbreviation for ‘fingerprint sensor below display’.
While this may likely be more general support for the feature in Android, it points to the com.google.android.systemui path rather than in com.android.systemui, it is specific to Pixel phones rather than something generic.
Like Apple, Google apparently saw face recognition as a preferred alternative to unlocking, and the Pixel 4 arrived without any fingerprint reader. But Google’s face unlock felt a bit half-baked, and a fingerprint reader on the back was back for the cheaper Pixel 5 in its place.
This time, it looks like Google might rather offer the best of both worlds. A month ago, Xish developers Mishaal Rahman discovered that the first developer preview of Android 12 contained references to unlocking devices “securely with your face and fingerprint.” A scanner built into the screen will definitely ensure a cleaner design, and in a world where we are likely to wear more face masks in the foreseeable future, it would feel like a mistake to return to face recognition.
Otherwise, Pixel 6 rumors are pretty thin at the moment, though the upcoming Snapdragon 775 SoC should still give it a significant chance in the arm, with a reported move to 5 nm design and overall improved performance. Nor would it be a Pixel phone without image processing, which ensures that the camera technology is much higher than its weight.
Of course, this is not the next phone that Google has up its sleeve. Although the Pixel 6 is likely to arrive in October or November, we’ve heard that the next budget entry – the Google Pixel 5a – may be due in June. In theory it could come with fingerprint scanning under the screen, but it probably isn’t. Not only do the Pixel 5a leaks show a fingerprint scanner on the back, the fact that we learn about the implementation of Pixel in the Android 12 Developer Preview virtually excludes it, given the recent history of the September OS updates.