iPhone to get face and object recognition

Patents registered by Apple suggest that the iPhone is going to get face and object recognition abilities.

These technologies, flagged by by IntoMobile, could have a big effect on the iPhone’s app potential, which as we all know is pretty impressive already. Object recognition could be a great help when shopping, allowing you to price-check anything you buy over the web, for example.

It’ll mean you’ll never buy anything again since there’ll inevitably be some obscure website that has it cheaper, but it could be useful nevertheless. We’re familiar with similar barcode-based systems, but perhaps the iPhone’s got something even more interesting in store.

Face recognition’s most obvious usage is in security, perhaps only giving certain users access to certain apps. Exactly how well it’ll work will determine its usefulness though- will it recognise you if you’re horribly hungover or, say, wearing glasses when you don’t normally?

Although these features will no doubt see a host of apps developed that are so useless they’d make a fart app blush, we can’t wait to see how they're implemented.