Face ID Unlocks an iPhone More Slowly Than Touch ID, but is Faster in Day-to-Day Usage

[convergent]

They’ve taken nothing from you. Your 6s works the way you like. The 8 works the way you like and has everything your 6s does and nearly everything the X does.

They’ve given consumers MORE choice. Any argument that selling MORE variations of phones, some of which behave the old way and some of which behave a new way, TAKES AWAY choice, is ridiculous.

Haha... The Apple way of "choice" . You want FPS, buy this one. You want facial buy that one. You want touch and pen, oh that is iPad only. You want a pointing device, oh that is Mac only. Other companies combine features into more robust products... Apple likes you buying more variations of products to get all the features! Only Apple fans see the removal of things as positive. Form over function!

 

[Abazigal]

When Jobs was there, Apple was better at forcing change. Now, unfortunately, they don't have a Jobs leading the forced change, so many of their changes, like the TouchBar for example, are just not good. The rest of the computing world is learning more and more about how to integrate touch, pen, keyboard, and pointing device into a single device, while Apple is refusing to embrace it. I have experienced the benefits of this. Apple has decided for its customers that you don't get to have a Desktop OS in a tablet. So they will spend 10 years trying to make a phone OS work like a desktop OS. In the mean time, they get you to buy more devices that way.

Does this not feel quintessentially Apple though?

Apple gives you way fewer options than the competition, but those options are extremely well optimised and supported.

For example, some android phones ship with up to 5 different ways of unlocking them - passcode, fingerprint sensor, iris scanner, pattern unlock and trusted location. The obvious drawback here is that some users risk choosing an inherently insecure way of protecting their phone such as pattern unlock, either out of preference or because they simply didn’t know better. And because there are so many ways, the company likely hasn’t spent a lot of time optimising any of them to work well, and it shows when your fingerprint sensor is located in an awkward part of the phone and the iris scanner can be fooled by a picture.

Conversely, the iPhone has just two - passcode and either Touch ID or Face ID, but they are extremely secure and Apple has spared no expense at ensuring it is so.

Same with laptops. Some windows laptops have so many modes of input, but the UI isn’t necessarily optimised for them. Apps are designed with a touchscreen in mind, and trackpads still aren’t all that good. But with macOS, the whole system is built from the ground up to support keyboard and trackpad gestures, and the trackpad works so well I don’t need a mouse most of the time. Which is often one less peripheral for me to bring around.

In the greater scheme of things, I think I still prefer Apple's method of offering me fewer, better options than a whole bunch of options that don’t work as well.

 

[convergent]

Does this not feel quintessentially Apple though?

Apple gives you way fewer options than the competition, but those options are extremely well optimised and supported.

For example, some android phones ship with up to 5 different ways of unlocking them - passcode, fingerprint sensor, iris scanner, pattern unlock and trusted location. The obvious drawback here is that some users risk choosing an inherently insecure way of protecting their phone such as pattern unlock, either out of preference or because they simply didn’t know better. And because there are so many ways, the company likely hasn’t spent a lot of time optimising any of them to work well, and it shows when your fingerprint sensor is located in an awkward part of the phone and the iris scanner can be fooled by a picture.

Conversely, the iPhone has just two - passcode and either Touch ID or Face ID, but they are extremely secure and Apple has spared no expense at ensuring it is so.

Same with laptops. Some windows laptops have so many modes of input, but the UI isn’t necessarily optimised for them. Apps are designed with a touchscreen in mind, and trackpads still aren’t all that good. But with macOS, the whole system is built from the ground up to support keyboard and trackpad gestures, and the trackpad works so well I don’t need a mouse most of the time. Which is often one less peripheral for me to bring around.

In the greater scheme of things, I think I still prefer Apple's method of offering me fewer, better options than a whole bunch of options that don’t work as well.

Yeh, well if I wasn't getting tremendous value from using things Apple doesn't think I should even possess, then I might agree with you. It stands to reason you are going to be more "optimized" when you create a simpler model with less choices and you control the entire ecosystem. There is clearly a distinct choice and difference between going all in on Apple vs. going with a heterogeneous approach. I was pretty much all in on Apple and didn't like being so tied to one vendor, especially as I found myself more and more unhappy with their direction of travel.

 

[strategicthinke]

Can you explain how you can do something faster using a tool that is actually slower?

I’ve explained it already, here it is:

1 - First generation Face ID. It’s already almost as fast as the latest generation of Touch ID.

2 - If you click on notifications, the Touch ID process IS slower given the necessary steps to “confirm” who you are.

What’s so hard to understand about it?
Whiners will be whiners.

 

[irobots]

Samsung helps Apple come up with the tech and gimmicky tech that spurs the ideas forward and Apple makes it the standard. Samsung/ Android is a progressive phone maker while Apple is a standard maker.

Touchscreen wasn’t invented by Apple but because they made it the standard, we have what we have.

Touch ID/ fingerprint became a standard when Apple decided to do it. Apple made it standard in all their phones that there should be no headphone jack.

Facial recognition is going to become the standard. S9 will have a way improved camera system to do exactly the same thing Apple is doing right now. Nothing they have right now is as good as faceID

Both worlds have helped each other benefit.

I don’t get why people fight which is better lol. As the example above they both help each other and the competition has helped the mobile phone industry for the consumer.

 

[mi7chy]

Face ID fails the evil twin test. No surprise as it's 1.4 million times weaker than iris scanner.

http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2017/10/31/iphone-x-first-impressions.cnnmoney/index.html

 

[jasonsmith_88]

Face ID fails the evil twin test. No surprise as it's 1.4 million times weaker than iris scanner.

Yeah, this is crazy. I can’t believe Apple didn’t put more thought into the evil twin scenario. Imagine how many people with evil twins this will affect worldwide. Three? Four? I really wish Apple would focus more on extreme edge-case/fictional scenarios than making devices for the general population.

 

[convergent]

Yeah, this is crazy. I can’t believe Apple didn’t put more thought into the evil twin scenario. Imagine how many people with evil twins this will affect worldwide. Three? Four? I really wish Apple would focus more on extreme edge-case/fictional scenarios than making devices for the general population.

I think the point is that if it fails on evil twins, then there are probably other people it may fail on that look very similar. Not sure how big of an issue that is, but there are I'm sure doppleganger type folks out there. I can't tell you how many times someone has said I looked like someone they knew. Now the odds of that person picking up my phone is probably near zero, but it is a level of insecurity that might be exploitable by other artificial means. How did Apple test it on a billion faces? They didn't have a billion people, so they must have faked it somehow.

 

[Spreken8]

I can't believe that no one is talking about the 2 elephants in the room. First, Raise to Wake. If I turn this on on my current iPhone it abuses my battery, A lot. Also this means there will be an active camera almost any time your phone is in motion. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but the Idea of always having a live camera is not OK with me. This is a no sell item in my book. This will also give authorities an easy way for them to work around needing a warrant to access your personal data. I am a law abiding citizen, but I have seen 2 circumstances where cops yelled and fussed trying to make myself on one occasion and someone else on another give up our pass codes. In my case this was because I was standing in the wrong place. In the other it was a simple traffic stop. No chance. I do not even use finger print scanning. If apple continues down this road and gives no other option, I guess I will move to an android or out of the smart phone world altogether.

 

[AnthonyG6]

I have used my iPhone X for a good few hours now and I have to say Face ID works like a charm. It’s like the good old days of ‘slide to unlock’ without using a passcode. It’s a seamless process and has worked 100% of the time so far. I am very impressed. And the notch...what notch?

 

[TwoBytes]

I'm in the camp of Face ID being a slower experience by introducing an extra tap to 'wake up the phone'.

Say the phone is on a desk stand. When the screen is off, the first tap is on the screen/side button to wake and then (2nd tap) slide up to unlock. I'm sure it's something to get use to.

 

[iamthedudeman]

I have used my iPhone X for a good few hours now and I have to say Face ID works like a charm. It’s like the good old days of ‘slide to unlock’ without using a passcode. It’s a seamless process and has worked 100% of the time so far. I am very impressed. And the notch...what notch?

Face ID works but touch ID is much faster. I dont like having to position my face to unlock my phone. Feels like a beta phone not ready for prime time. I just had my coffee outside to test face id here in sunny florida to test how it performs in a bright environment like windows hello.

Well it is slower in direct sunlight. Same as windows hello on my surface book. It failed twice! I am trying to give this phone a chance since i only had it a few hours. So we will see.

 

[convergent]

Face ID works but touch ID is much faster. I dont like having to position my face to unlock my phone. Feels like a beta phone not ready for prime time. I just had my coffee outside to test face id here in sunny florida to test how it performs in a bright environment like windows hello.

Well it is slower in direct sunlight. Same as windows hello on my surface book. It failed twice! I am trying to give this phone a chance since i only had it a few hours. So we will see.

And this is precisely why I like having both FPS and face/iris. They each work better in some situations. No amount of tweaking software or Apple explanations will change that.

 

[Boardiesboi]

Just wondering what everyone's experience is with the speed of unlocking with Face ID.

I pick my phone up, swipe up immediately and I see the Face ID text and full pad lock unlock animation before it fully unlocks.

Is that normal or is that slow?