Update: Thankfully, Google seems to be quite proactive in updating the Pixel 6 and is set to improve the way it displays data at a glance.

The more people get their hands on the Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro, the more we learn as those people dig into the phones. And so it is with this new news. According to a new report, the Pixel 6 series was supposed to have Face Unlock, but when it actually launched, it was not found to have Face Unlock.

In fact, leaked information for the Pixel 6 said it would have Face Unlock, but it was questionable whether it would be the same Face Unlock that was on the Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL. Still, having another unlock method would not be a bad thing in itself, especially with the Pixel 6's slower fingerprint sensor.

XDA user Freak07 (via XDA Developers), who posted this news on his Twitter account, discovered that Google changed one of the Pixel 6's core files, with a description suggesting a face unlock feature called "Tuscany" called "Tuscany," which was removed. Google made this change on July 9, months before the Pixel 6 was released in October.

The file in question is the Pixel 6's PowerHAL configuration file. It appears that Google was trying to reduce power consumption by optimizing the amount of CPU that Face Unlock uses for authentication in a short period of time. Basically, the Pixel 6 should check your face and unlock fairly quickly, using less battery to do so.

Since the Pixel 6 does not have Face Unlock, it seems that Google could not get the phone and its Tensor system-on-a-chip to work well. However, the company did not remove all references to Tuscany from the Pixel 6's configuration file, so Freak07 believes that Face Unlock may be included in the future. After all, Google likes to do feature drops on a quarterly basis.

The usefulness of Face Unlock is not lost on us, especially since it can fall back on the fingerprint sensor when wearing a mask. Perhaps it is not a bad thing that Google discontinued this feature with the launch of the Pixel 6. While we like both the regular Pixel 6 and the Pixel 6 Pro very much, they are not without their problems. If they were not ready for Face Unlock, then perhaps it was a good thing that they launched without it.