Especially when I'm working out and I'm sweaty. Or I have gloves on. Or....on and on.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Face ID Unlocks an iPhone More Slowly Than Touch ID, but is Faster in Day-to-Day Usage
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Especially when I'm working out and I'm sweaty. Or I have gloves on. Or....on and on.
Which is why having BOTH is what they should have done. There are use cases TouchID is better and use cases FaceID is better.
If your phone is in one of those plastic cases which you strap to your arm, you won't be able to use Touch ID anyways, since the plastic covers the home button as well.
Seems like Face ID might actually be better here, since I can still unlock my phone even when it is covered in plastic.
So why wouldn't Face ID work here? You will still have to look at the screen, right?
Trust me, there's nothing discreet about checking your phone under the table. Your intent is as clear as day to everyone in the room; it's just whether they want to make a deal of it or not. I do it openly in my meetings and everyone's fine with it. We are all professionals here.
But my point still stands - you will be looking at the screen at some point, and Face ID will work.
You can manipulate a touchscreen device from muscle memory? Fair enough point if you actually do this on a regular basis. I don't.
It's a split-second difference. I concede this one.
Or simply double-click the power button, authenticate with Face ID, then pay.
Why do you need to be discreet anyways?
I dunno - some of the scenarios you raised feel really forced and contrived.
[doublepost=1509627715][/doublepost]
Having both would defeat the whole point of Face ID - which is to provide better security, if people just opted to stick with Touch ID out of a sense of familiarity.
The right thing here would have been to depreciate Touch ID in favour of Face ID, and place the onus of adapting to it on the user.
This is how generational shifts work - first you try to force the new tool to fit the old workflow, and then the new tool creates a new workflow. Both parts are painful and full of denial, but the new model is ultimately much better than the old.
These are all real scenarios where touch would work better. You have explained them all away, so that's great because anyone with an X is going to have no choice. But they are real. If you think holding your phone up in front of your face to unlock it in a business meeting is in any way the same as being able to just pull it out and take a quick glance, not sure what to say. One is a huge distraction to others, and one is most likely going to go unnoticed unless the person is actually talking when they do it. I suppose you are the guy who stands at some event in the front of the crowd and whips out an iPad to take a photo... that's just as discrete as using a phone or camera... not.
[doublepost=1509628195][/doublepost]
Anyone want to start a pool on how long after tomorrow before Apple issues some statement that reads roughly like, "You are looking at it wrong.".
I have been in numerous meetings, and my phone is always on the table in front of me. I have seen the YouTube videos on them, and they show that I will be able to unlock the iPhone X via Face ID even when it is resting flat on the table. Tap to wake up the screen, then swipe up or press down on home button - neither seems any more innocuous than the other.
Either way, I will not have to raise the phone to my face to unlock it. And unlocking a phone with Touch ID is not as discreet as you would make it seem. Or at least, it’s pretty obvious to me when someone is using their phone.
If it unlocks just laying on the table then that would be great. The early reviews I read said that people were having to hold it up, so we will see. That still doesn't help you if your phone is in your pocket.
We can go back and forth on what if scenarios. My whole point in bringing this up is that there are going to be cases where touch would work better (or at all). Anyone who doesn't see that is not looking at it objectively. I would rather have the option to use either, than only having one choice.
And my point is that people who keep zeroing in on these minor issues while completing ignoring the huge potential of Face ID are missing the forest for the trees.
That's what frustrates me. People go to lengths to prove that Face ID is a split-second slower than Touch ID in some scenario and then use that as evidence that Apple is "wrong" or somehow "losing the plot". It feels to me like someone who attempts to prove that you can type faster on a physical blackberry keyboard than on the iPhone's virtual keyboard. They can be right and yet be so wildly off the mark. In the greater scheme of things, it just doesn't matter. The pros will ultimately far outweigh the cons.
What we are bearing witness to here is Apple being willing to throw familiarity out the window to pave a new iPhone journey for the next 10 years. Of their willingness to completely rethink the iPhone experience by throwing out the familiarity of the home button and changing the way we interact with our devices. Apple is laying the foundation for a new user interface paradigm in which we rely not so much on multi-touch to control our iPhones, but more of glances and looks, and the experiences gleaned from the iPhone X will eventually trickle down to other Apple products as well.
And what sort of product do you think would benefit greatly from being able to be controlled by glances and gestures?
Apple glasses built around AR and augmenting vision.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Apple is doubling down on AR with iOS 11.
But yeah, let's ignore all that just because the iPhone X unlocks a split-second slower under very specific conditions.
What annoys me is that Apple thinks you have to throw things out the window to pave the next 10 years, because you don't. They call it "courage". I call it lame "form over function" excuses. They could have done everything they've done with FaceID and still kept TouchID and it would have been a better product functionally. Your example of the keyboard is actually a good one. I have always hated an on screen keyboard, and its gotten no better in time. Unfortunately, the world followed Apple in stopping development of this technology until you really can't buy a phone with it anymore. There is no "pro" other than form and thinness in not having some form of slider keyboard. But that is water under the bridge. And we have a crappy typing experience thanks to their courage.
AR is very likely to be the next 3D TV. And Apple is one of many trying to find a nail for that hammer.
Well, a phone is a very personal device which you are expected to have on you at all times, and I would like to think that a thinner and lighter phone is a better phone in that it is easier and more convenient to bring around with you. And the more people are comfortable with bringing a phone along with them because it's so much more portable, the more they are in a position to use it for what purpose they deem fit.
The lesson Apple keeps teaching and others keep ignoring is; to create true meaningful change in a market, you need to force change. By taking bold unapologetic stances. Here’s a touchscreen smart phone without the familiarity of a physical Qwerty keyboard. Here’s a large screen tablet without a desktop OS and desktop apps and file system. Here’s a smart phone without a headphone jack. Here's a laptop with only USB-C ports.
How else would you funnel users towards the technologies you are attempting to spearhead?
Annoying, yes, but I also see why it would be necessary.
Its also a device you are expected to type on... quite a bit. So having a terrible typing experience is just as inconvenient as a little thicker design. The point is there were some very good slider keyboard designs with full touch screen displays prior to the iPhone. Had that technology continued to advance they would have been a lot thinner and lighter by now, but unfortunately that was the time when everyone tried to copy Apple and stopped development. Thankfully the other companies are no longer just following Apple... the X is mostly a catch-up for Apple.
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.
I'm not worried about security or how well Face ID works. I'm sure they're as good or even better than Touch ID. What bothers me is convenience factor. Even after all this time since the iPhone X's announcement, I'm still not convinced that it will ever be better than Touch ID. I know it seems like a small thing to complain about, but there are plenty of situations where I would rather just tap a button than have to look at my phone. Privacy is probably my biggest worry. Being discreet about looking at your phone in meetings is now harder too. Apple Pay takes one more step. And list could go on. These tiny annoyances add up.
This trend of taking away features without any appreciable improvement in user experience is starting to bother me. Taking away the headphone jack didn't make me like or want the iPhone 7 any better. Instead, now I have to stop listening to music to charge my phone. It's the same thing now with Touch ID, but it's an even bigger turn off.
This trend of taking away features without any appreciable improvement in user experience is starting to bother me. Taking away the headphone jack didn't make me like or want the iPhone 7 any better. Instead, now I have to stop listening to music to charge my phone. It's the same thing now with Touch ID, but it's an even bigger turn off.
I'm with you on this one. Poor decision on Apple's part to take away the ability of the user to decide when their device should be unlocked or not. This is a step in the wrong direction, IMO.
Combined with the seeming inability to have the X go automatically to the Home screen once unlocked with FaceID is another choice taken away from the user. Most of the time I'm going onto my phone it's not to read a notification, but to get to an app, so leaving me on the notification screen is a waste of time. With TouchID I have it set through Accessibility to jump straight to the Home screen by just resting my finger on the sensor. This combined with Raise to Wake makes it incredibly fast to pull up my phone and already be on the home screen before I even look at it and it makes it wonderfully fast to use in practice. Doesn't seem like I can do this with the X the way it is now. Hoping Apple changes that...
Apple has taken nothing away from the user. if you have a phone that did what you are talking about it still does. If you want a new phone that behaves the same way, buy an 8.
Having an X that behaves differently ALLOWS the user to decide how they want the device to behave - if they like it your way they can buy an 8. If they like it the other way they can buy an X.
Uh, ok. FaceID has done exactly what I said, so yes they've taken choice from me as the user compared to how TouchID functioned. I don't even understand why you're bothering to argue otherwise. If you'd like to respond with something else than 'deal with it' I'm all ears.
My 6S isn't going to last forever and I'm not wasting money on an 8.
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.
They've actually innovated here. At least as far as being first to market with 3D facial recognition. Of course, this is an unpopular thing to say...
More choice? The future of the iPhone is the X design and FaceID. Apple says it right in the marketing. The 8 is the end of the line for that several-year-old design, why would I spend a lot of money to buy something that's made with the past in mind.
In general, as technology advances it should be designed to make our lives better and easier. Right now with FaceID I don't see Apple really offering a clearly superior experience over existing TouchID. At best, it's a sideways step right now. They could give us more flexibility in the future so as to offer a better experience (especially in regards to the 1 face limitation or the angles that FaceID can verify at), but right now they're not really signaling that with the restrictions on implementation. Why is Apple telling me with the X that "the notification screen is the most important one, you must go through it first" when TouchID currently gives us a very graceful solution to satisfy our own preference for either checking notifications first or going home? That's the kind of choice I'm talking about.
If Apple decides to return this functionality and give us the choice to go automatically to the Home screen after verifying my face then this complaint is largely dealt with. I still don't like not being able to decide when my phone should unlock or not, but at least I'll retain the ability to get to the home screen with the minimal amount of effort/time like I currently can. I'm not the only who wants this either, several reviewers have already mentioned it. If Apple is asking me to drop $1,000 on a phone it better offer a plainly superior user experience and I'm just not seeing the case for that yet.
Listen. I’m excited about this thing. Very. I’m not going to judgment until I use it. I’m just sharing potential concerns. I’m obviously not concerned enough to not get one lol. We had similar discussions with Touch ID (my favorite was cutting a persons finger off, ffs I’d be more worried about my severed finger in that case lol). This is all probably a non issue. I’ll find out tomorrow
[doublepost=1509653662][/doublepost]
It’s also worth noting they’ve basically dropped kinekt technology into the iPhone.
Not arguing they didn’t innovate. Have you seen the size of a kinekt? Dropping that into a smartphone is amazing enough. The added tweaks they did to it is awesome.
Just saying this because they didn’t invent the wheel here. They simply improved it. Which is excellent. A lot of times people get caught up in innovation versus invention. They’re not necessarily the same.
yeah, i guess for those tech jobs like that theres an exception, but most of my friends who have a passcode on their phones are just paranoid about people reading their texts