Doubts and Speculation Surround Apple's Onstage Face ID 'Fail' During iPhone X Keynote [Updated]

timmyh said:
I believe it's required after 48 hours have elapsed and Touch ID hasn't been used, or if the passcode hasn't been input for six and a half days, which is a long time and why I didn't mention it, but I've added it in the article for you. It may have changed with Face ID as well, so it's still a point of contention I guess.
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I’m beginning to think that they’ve purposely set it up so that it doesn’t work at extreme angles, because if it did, it would be trying to authenticate everybody’s face that’s nearby you.
 
Going to give a (somewhat) unbias opinion here on the iPhone X, as I've now moved from an iPhone 7 to a S8+.

When the S8+ came out I loved the look of it, I wanted one. The fingerprint scanner on the back stopped me, I decided wait and see whether Apple achieved what Samsung could not and put it under the screen. When leaks started to firm up this weekend I was convinced they hadn't, so upon been offered a great deal I decided to go for the S8+.

Initially I thought I'd be frustrated at using the rear fingerprint scanner, since I've found I haven't as I've purely used face unlock. It's been great, quite fast and hasn't really failed. I haven't missed TouchID... Which really shocked me.. However....

Just from a sheer technology perspective the iPhone X will be far more accurate than the S8+, on top of being more secure. Then again I don't think it'll be any faster, I suspect the whole swipe to unlock masks the speed in which it can unlock the phone. From watching hands on, it's about as fast as Samsung's offering.

Is FaceID or Samsung's implementation fast enough? No it's a shade off to be seamless but it really is quite good. I can see any iPhone X owner being pleasantly surprised and happy even if apprehensive.

It will be nice when they figure out how to put it under a screen. Not to mention remove that horrendous forehead design to put the camera and sensors, really made iPhone X a no go for me. Visually the S8 is a far nicer device.. Oh yeah...£1000... lol
 
rafark said:
I can't beileve they actually put faceId to work live in the keynote, in such an important event in order to minimize these potential failures they should've tricked it by having a phone that is already unlocked so the demonstrator only has to swipe the screen to get to the homescreen, making it seem like it works as expected.
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I really appreciate the fact that it was live and not staged - at least with the first one. The backup device though I am not sure. It's possible if not likely that that one was not locked and had a flawless demo mode installed. Just in case...
 
CerebralX said:
Well if one phone supposedly "failed" then why did the backup phone not have a single hiccup? It worked flawlessly.
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While both phones have the same hardware and software, each phone is trained to recognize the face individually. Reportedly they use neural network learning technology for that. So both phones get different "lessons" and thus may come to different conclusions when shown the same object. Besides the object (his head) inevitably moved from one attempt to another.
 
Iconoclysm said:
Even if this were a failed attempt, one thing we learned is that the phone will get better at recognizing you. Perhaps stage makeup and bright lights were taxing on the phone...and that's if the problem wasn't something out of our purview.
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I am pretty sure there habe been rehearsals under these conditions, don't you think?
 
Craig's quality control and oversight needs to be much sharper and aggressively passionate. The way macOS fell behind Windows in several important areas (graphics APIs and drivers, I/O peripheral drivers, etc) and almost turned into desktop iOS, the way he showed off Apple Pay by buying some stupid chakra pyramids (we are tech industry not Gwyneth Paltrow industry), the myriad of bugs in iOS and macOS that could easily have been avoided with testing, and this badly prepped introduction of Face ID. All this can be avoided by being hungry to make the best damn performing software not just superficially friendly to look at.
 
kdarling said:
You said:



Why would it put up a passcode prompt unless it tried? Something had to trigger that prompt.

Are you saying that if someone doesn't enable FaceId, then it will be constantly putting up a passcode prompt whenever it sees someone pass by? That makes no sense and would be constantly going off.

The prompt is the normal one if someone tries biometrics and it fails.

Still seems to be a lot of questions about the details.
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Here are the scenarios under which Apple’s biometrics requires a passcode.

  • The device has just been turned on or restarted
  • The device has not been unlocked for more than 48 hours
  • The passcode has not been used to unlock the device in the last six days and TouchID has not unlocked the device in the last eight hours
  • The device has received a remote lock command
  • After five unsuccessful attempts to match a fingerprint
  • When setting up or enrolling new fingers with Touch ID

If Apple’s biometric fails there are 2 visual indicators and one physical.

1: “try again”
2: Security lock animation jitters from side to side, which differs from Apples scrolling bounce animation
3: Taptic Engine vibrates strongly

How many did you witness? Don’t assume anything, and pretend you have a remote understanding of, and experience iOS.
 
It's also possible that the demo version always show that error message after an unsuccessful unlock so press would think it was just a demo error not an actual glitch
 
Derekeys said:
I truly believe it was the second explanation. Rebooted with no passcode punched in.

That being said, I'm having some serious doubts that FaceID will be better than TouchID.

I will be waiting for some solid reviews on this one.
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Exactly - if you read it - it said it wanted the passcode punched in to ENABLE FACE ID - that is the same thing that happens with current TOUCH ID phones and restart - NON ISSUE, folks.
 
MacGod said:
Exactly - if you read it - it said it wanted the passcode punched in to ENABLE FACE ID - that is the same thing that happens with current TOUCH ID phones and restart - NON ISSUE, folks.
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Yeah non issue lets just ignore all the people who saw it being demoed in the hands on area and said it failed multiple times.
[doublepost=1505331188][/doublepost]Heres a quote from Wired..

Face ID, at least in the brief demos I got, worked one of two ways: amazingly fast or not at all.

It won't work if your phone's flat on a table—you'll have to pick up and look at your phone every time you want to unlock it. I suspect a lot of people will just go back to having numerical passcodes.
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Bobby Corwen said:
If you claim it wasn't just one then you should post the link to the other negative ones. All the ones I saw it worked fine and reasonable.

Do you understand why they got rid of Touch ID and the button? It was to make space.

Having both on there to "cover everyone" makes absolutely no sense.
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I’m not going out of my way to find links for you, just look at the hands on or videos of Face ID functionality (e.g. Apple Pay). Dear me, clearly you don’t understand. I am talking about embedded Touch ID. The reason the button was removed was to make space for the display, that is NOT the reason Touch ID was removed.
 
Tim Cook and co. Have basically doomed apple. Instead of pretending like they were developing this phone for the last two years they should have actually been developing this phone for the last two years and not wait until Samsung surpassed them in features and attempted to catch up by making a half assed $1000 phone
 
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Rob_2811 said:
Techradar.com on FaceID:
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I can see it becoming a issue. I also I wonder what happens in a crowded room. Will that Face ID get confused like it did it some youtube videos. Nothing beats a fingerprint sensor; its just no way around the speed of one.
 
Remember, face recognition is a compromise because Apple couldn't get Touch ID to work through the screen.

And that's too bad. Being able to access the home screen by a long press of the lower part of the screen would have been awesome.
 
Technarchy said:
Here are the scenarios under which Apple’s biometrics requires a passcode.
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Yes, I posted those previously.

If Apple’s biometric fails there are 2 visual indicators and one physical.
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That's up until FaceId fails twice. Then it's going to prompt for a passcode.

How many did you witness?
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None, because it was already into the passcode prompt.

Don’t assume anything, and pretend you have a remote understanding of, and experience iOS.
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I use iOS all the time. As an OS and application programmer I also know a lot about its operation and APIs.

While I'm asking for info from others about how they think FaceId works, you're the one who totally made up a claim that the passcode prompt magically appeared because FaceId wasn't enabled yet. And that flies in the face of what all the rest of us who use iOS have been posting.

So I ask you again: why do you think that message would appear if, as you claim, FaceId was not enabled? And wouldn't that be annoying if you left it disabled?
 
iReality85 said:
I'll give it a pass, as sometimes demos have issues. I think Craig handled it pretty well too, not really missing his step and simply continuing on. Besides, it was reassuring to see that you can still unlock your phone in the event FaceID misreads, something that I'm sure was on the minds of many viewers.
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No. Not really. I bet you are one of the few if not the only one who was thinking that. You can obviously always unlock by entering the required numeric passcode
 
When TouchID fails, it literally says "TouchID could not recognize your fingerprint". But that's not the error we saw during the keynote, it said "Your passcode is required to ENABLE FaceID". I definitely believe it was the second theory. It's not that it couldn't recognize his face, it's that FaceID wasn't set up yet. I 100% believe if he would have put the passcode in and tried again, it would have worked.
 
kdarling said:
If it was just turned on, there should be a "restart" notice in the prompt:

View attachment 717360

As for triggering the passcode prompt because of too many unlock attempts, that raises a far more important question:

- Does that mean that if multiple people pass by the phone, will the passcode prompt will be triggered after say, the fifth invalid face check? That would be incredibly annoying.

- Also, sorry, I got interrupted during the show... but did they mention how you're supposed to unlock and show stuff to a friend (or hand them the phone) without it locking again ?

Thanks for any insights.
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First point, the phone’s screen has to be on for Face ID to be active, so if it’s on sleep it doesn’t matter. Also when screen is on, person has to be looking at the phone, not away, only then will it try to unlock. Last point, it does not lock when you look away or pass it on!
 
i don't believe that it failed. the "error" text stated "your passcode is required to enable Face ID". anyone that uses iPhone for more than a day knows that once the phone is powered off (whether it dies or is intentionally shut down), it disables unlock mechanisms other than passcode until the passcode is entered that first time after booting to the lock screen. that may have been the case at the keynote; a very minor oversight during getting the show ready that, once the media gets ahold of, turns into something it isn't... inb4 facegate *eyeroll*
 
Honestly, it doesn't matter at this point WHY it failed. Whether the phone was rebooted, pass-code-only locked etc etc - all irrelevant

The damage is done, and you can bet Apple is FURIOUS that the very first live demonstration absolutely, 100% failed.

I'm still buying one, as I have faith in the technology, but boy that is a real downer for those on the fence or not technologically adventurous.
 
Something that occurred to me about this from this situation, is:

To friend: “Hey, can you check what time it is, my iPhone is just on the table?”

Or, friend just looks to see time. Or they go to set a timer?

If FaceID tries to authenticate them, and does it again, then what? I have to enter my passcode? Because this is going to be annoying and common; something that wouldn’t happen with TouchID...

Unless there is something to initiate authentication? Who knows...?
 
I am not aware what beta testing FaceID had undergone - but being exposed to Phil's impressive phenotype as a background scene could very well be a cause of disruption for any system that is expecting a face
 
The.Outsider said:
I love this too much to ignore a proper thank you for this most hilarious comment. You summed it up perfectly! Bravo! :)
[doublepost=1505325439][/doublepost]

And then the second best comment goes to you, I swear this is too good to be ignored! I love that you even have a screen shot of the "Tutorial" of how to use it ;p
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Thanks for the kind words, friend! I hope you enjoy whichever device you choose!
 
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