>I, for one, can never purchase a device that has to take a photo every time I lift it.
iPhone X series is great fit for you then since it doesn't do that. Face ID uses an infrared dot projector and independent viewer to do a 3D read and then that goes directly to the independent security processor which acts as a black box (all cryptographically tied together, just like Touch ID). There is no photo of your face being taken let alone going anywhere. You can quite literally and trivially (as in I just did it right now) completely cover the front facing camera on an iPhone X and it will unlock with Face ID just fine.
If you're just worried about the mere existence of a front facing camera period then you should physically block it or drill it and inject it with black epoxy or something of that order.
>Couldn’t they ditch the notch by having the speaker on the edge of the device?
The notch is pure function defining form where the function is Face ID and a front facing camera. Face ID is a very valuable and important security feature, even if they ever figure out how to get Touch ID to work again through a screen. And a huge proportion of the market wants a front facing camera (as long as it's sufficiently secured, which Apple does a decent job of in iOS). Maybe they'll figure out how to profitably mass produce those features through a screen too someday but I don't see the notch going away in the mean time. Speaker function is by far the least important role there.
iPhone X series is great fit for you then since it doesn't do that. Face ID uses an infrared dot projector and independent viewer to do a 3D read and then that goes directly to the independent security processor which acts as a black box (all cryptographically tied together, just like Touch ID). There is no photo of your face being taken let alone going anywhere. You can quite literally and trivially (as in I just did it right now) completely cover the front facing camera on an iPhone X and it will unlock with Face ID just fine.
If you're just worried about the mere existence of a front facing camera period then you should physically block it or drill it and inject it with black epoxy or something of that order.
>Couldn’t they ditch the notch by having the speaker on the edge of the device?
The notch is pure function defining form where the function is Face ID and a front facing camera. Face ID is a very valuable and important security feature, even if they ever figure out how to get Touch ID to work again through a screen. And a huge proportion of the market wants a front facing camera (as long as it's sufficiently secured, which Apple does a decent job of in iOS). Maybe they'll figure out how to profitably mass produce those features through a screen too someday but I don't see the notch going away in the mean time. Speaker function is by far the least important role there.