It looks like Face ID will finally come to Mac laptops with the move from Intel processors to Apple Silicon for selected new Macs. 

After its 2017 debut on the iPhone X. Face ID was long-rumoured to come to the iPad which it did in 2018 but still hasn't made it to the Mac. However, according to discoveries by 9to5 Mac in the macOS Big Sur beta code, the new operating system is capable of Face ID unlock. 

The site discovered references to 'PearlCamera' which was the internal codename for the TrueDepth camera featured in the iPhone X and later as well as the 2018 and later iPad Pro lineup. There are also references to 'FaceDetect” and 'BioCapture', too, which only point one way. 

While it's a leap from this discovery to suggest that the new feature would arrive with Apple Silicon Macs, it's not really - Apple will surely want its new-generation portables to shine with new features and bringing Face ID across is a no brainer, especially since Microsoft's Windows Hello face-recognition tech is working so well on newer Windows 10 PCs. 

On the iPhone and iPad. Face ID also relies on the neural engine within Apple's A-Series processors and so it'll need similar chips to arrive on the Mac. We know that Apple Silicon on the Mac will also bring the neural engine across from what Apple said during the launch of Apple Silicon at Apple's developer conference.