The Tame Apple Press praised Jobs’ Mob when it ditched the Touch ID sensor on the iPhone X last year in favour of Face ID.

The big idea was that you only had to glance at your handset to unlock it. Apple claimed against all evidence it was more secure than a fingerprint and left users with Face ID, or the old-fashioned PIN code.

But it looks like behind the scenes Apple was not so confident that its Face ID would stand the test of time.

A patent spotted by Patently Apple shows that the company is not only contemplating a phone which uses both Face ID and Touch ID, it even has doubts about its own FID tech.

The patent, filed in Europe, shows Touch ID being used as a backup if Face ID does not unlock the phone.

"Techniques for implementing biometric authentication using electronic devices are generally cumbersome. For example, some existing techniques, such as those directed to facial recognition, need a user to almost perfectly align a biometric feature in a same manner during both enrolment and each iteration of authentication. Deviation from the alignment of the biometric feature often results in a false negative result."

Basically, this is saying that Apple admits its Face ID isn't as perfect as it claimed and it needs some sort of backup.

Apple's marketing for the iPhone X, XS, XS Max and XR has focused on how accurate Face ID is, but here we have Apple admitting that the system isn't infallible.