Apple released iOS 12.1 beta update earlier today and it suggests landscape Face ID support for upcoming iPad Pro models. Many rumors in the past suggested Apple would introduce Face ID support for iPads and in landscape orientation since unlocking in portrait mode would be inconvenient with a larger tablet form factor.
iOS 12.1 also appears to coincide with a change to MFi game controllers to allow for clickable thumb sticks. Finally,. pic.twitter.com/O2XMVg8WJS
— Steve Troughton-Smith (@stroughtonsmith) September 18, 2018
However, it is unclear how Apple will implement Face ID in the iPad Pro models, though, some rumors point at the inclusion of a new mystery port which is said to be a Smart Connector located at the back of the device.
According to Japanese site Mac Otakara, the Smart Connector allegedly works with a new vertically oriented Smart Keyboard. The iOS 12.1 beta update appears to have code to support an upcoming change to MFi game controllers that will offer compatibility with clickable thumbsticks, and iOS 12.1 “seems to care a lot more about whether an external display is connected.”
That doesn’t end there, With the 12.1 beta update, Apple has introduced a new daemon to iOS, called avatarsd. A daemon is a program that runs in the background and is usually necessary to coordinate access to system resources and information between different apps, or to perform activities such as syncing. The new daemon might be used to handle the storage and syncing of Memoji through iCloud. The feature is only enabled for Apple internal builds of iOS 12.1 at the moment.
Currently, when you create a custom Memoji on one of your iPhones, they won’t show up on others since Memoji is only supported on the iPhones. But going forward, Apple might implement iCloud syncing for Memoji as it is preparing new iPad Pro models with FaceID for later this year.