Google’s new flagship devices, the Pixel 6 series was launched in October last year, and debuted the Google Tensor chip and had good specs, but lacked a Pixel 6 Pro Face Unlock feature, despite some marketing material referencing it. Well, this may not be the case for long (atleast for the Pixel 6 Pro), since some code has leaked regarding the Pixel 6 Pro Face Unlock feature. Let’s take a look.
Pixel 6 Pro Face Unlock Leaked
So, a user on Reddit (u/Special_Command7893) posted that when they got their Pixel 6 Pro, during the setup process, that they saw that one of the options to unlock the device with was face unlock.
<string name=”biometrics_unlock_set_unlock_password”>Password • Face • Fingerprint</string>
<string name=”biometrics_unlock_set_unlock_pattern”>Pattern • Face • Fingerprint</string>
<string name=”biometrics_unlock_set_unlock_pin”>PIN • Face • Fingerprint</string>
They said in the comments that they did not get to setup Face Unlock during the setup, or in the settings after the fact. However, after 9to5Google reported on this topic, they also discovered that there was code in the app regarding Face Unlock in Android builds dating back to October of last year, when the Pixel 6 series got released. Here is a quote from 9to5Google:
“After digging deeper into Android 12, we found that the setup page in question has existed on the Pixel 6 Pro as early as the initial SD1A.210817.015.A4 (Oct 2021) build. It’s not clear why it was triggered recently.”
The Pixel 6 Pro Face Unlock feature seems to have been there since the start, but was never activated for end users. The reasoning behind this is unclear. Google has not had Face Unlock on their devices ever since the release of the Pixel 4a, due to the fact that the Pixel 4a had a fingerprint sensor, and so did the devices that released after it. The Pixel 4 series stay as the only Google devices with official Face Unlock so far. The Pixel 5, Google’s last so-called flagship phone also lacked the feature.