Although the notes for yesterday’s release of the first iOS 12.1 beta offered no information on any upcoming new features, developers have already begun digging through the code to discover what the next point release of iOS 12 may have in store for us. Guilherme Rambo at 9to5Mac has discovered a new background process named avatarsd that appears to be designed to allow Memoji to sync to other iOS devices via iCloud, although he notes that the feature only seems to be enabled for Apple internal builds of iOS 12.1 at the moment and not developer builds.
As Rambo notes, custom Memoji created in iOS 12 is currently only stored locally, which isn’t a problem for most users as it’s currently only supported on the iPhone; however if the rumours are correct that a Face ID capable iPad Pro is in the works, the ability to have custom Memoji synced via iCloud would make a lot of sense.
In addition, MacRumors reports that developer Steve Troughton-Smith has discovered code that suggests that landscape support for Face ID has also been baked into the iOS 12.1 beta, again very likely to support upcoming iPad Pro models with Face ID.
Troughton-Smith adds that as far as he can tell, landscape Face ID is also hardware-dependant, requiring “a realignment of the front-facing sensors,” suggesting that it’s exclusively for new iPad Pro models and won’t be coming to the iPhone.
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