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Love my MBA ... hate TouchID

A

agregson

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 18, 2020
180
109
I have MBA 8/256 M1 and love it. Also have iMac 24 16/512 and love it. Complements the iPad Pro 12.9 M1 and iPhone 13 Pro Max. MBA and iMac replaced previous rMB and iMac 27.

I detest TouchID. It rarely works for much more than a few days on MBA. iMac seems more robust. I was delighted to see the back of TouchID as it simply never worked reliably for me on any iOS device. I simply detest it. I suffer from dry fingers and circulation can be variable. As a result TouchID is simply awful for me. A little surprised it has stayed working on the iMac keyboard since I got iMac a month ago. This is longest in history of Apple TouchID that I have gone without a need to retrain it.

I was delighted to see FaceID arrive and was a main reason to quickly upgrade iPad out of my usual 2 year cycle. I would love it on iMac and MBA.

Has anyone else had any similar issues? It really does spoil the experience for me and always has done. At least now I can authenticate with Apple Watch as an alternative.
 
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I've always had terrible fingerprints so touch ID never works for me, but that's not my MBA's fault. :p
 
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agregson said:
I have MBA 8/256 M1 and love it. Also have iMac 24 16/512 and love it. Complements the iPad Pro 12.9 M1 and iPhone 13 Pro Max. MBA and iMac replaced previous rMB and iMac 27.

I detest TouchID. It rarely works for much more than a few days on MBA. iMac seems more robust. I was delighted to see the back of TouchID as it simply never worked reliably for me on any iOS device. I simply detest it. I suffer from dry fingers and circulation can be variable. As a result TouchID is simply awful for me. A little surprised it has stayed working on the iMac keyboard since I got iMac a month ago. This is longest in history of Apple TouchID that I have gone without a need to retrain it.

I was delighted to see FaceID arrive and was a main reason to quickly upgrade iPad out of my usual 2 year cycle. I would love it on iMac and MBA.

Has anyone else had any similar issues? It really does spoil the experience for me and always has done. At least now I can authenticate with Apple Watch as an alternative.
Click to expand...
Does TouchID fail due to problems with reading your fingertips or is that your session expiring and needing to be reauthenticated?

Logging in with your password establishes a long term session giving you access to the computer. TouchID will give you access to that session for several day. I’ve never timed it exactly but probably around a week. After that, you will need to reauthenticate with your password to use TouchID again. TouchID is a temporary access pass, not permanent. Maybe that is not your problem but some people don’t understand how TouchID authentication works and think of it as a password.
 
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I always try and use my right thumb, but it only works for a day or two then stops. Like you, I have dry fingers and live in a relatively dry climate, especially winter. Tried my right index finger, and same issue.

I registered my left index finger and, for whatever reason, that always works! I must do something which causes my right had to be dryer than the left. Oi, no.
 
Touch ID works really well with my fingers, but I can sympathize if that's not the case for you. One suggestion: Enter the same finger multiple times into different fingerprint profiles. Even adding your main finger one additional time can make a difference.

As to Face ID, I think most of us would like it, but it currently requires a camera that's thicker than the lid of an MBP. I suspect that's why it made it's way into the iPad but not the Mac. What's really surprising to me is that the Apple Studio Display doesn't have Face ID.
 
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agregson said:
I have MBA 8/256 M1 and love it. Also have iMac 24 16/512 and love it. Complements the iPad Pro 12.9 M1 and iPhone 13 Pro Max. MBA and iMac replaced previous rMB and iMac 27.

I detest TouchID. It rarely works for much more than a few days on MBA. iMac seems more robust. I was delighted to see the back of TouchID as it simply never worked reliably for me on any iOS device. I simply detest it. I suffer from dry fingers and circulation can be variable. As a result TouchID is simply awful for me. A little surprised it has stayed working on the iMac keyboard since I got iMac a month ago. This is longest in history of Apple TouchID that I have gone without a need to retrain it.

I was delighted to see FaceID arrive and was a main reason to quickly upgrade iPad out of my usual 2 year cycle. I would love it on iMac and MBA.

Has anyone else had any similar issues? It really does spoil the experience for me and always has done. At least now I can authenticate with Apple Watch as an alternative.
Click to expand...
have the same problem, extremely dry skin, I need to lick my finger before I have success. Good thing I rarely need to do that because my AW works 99% of the time
 
Could this be the issue?
The pinned comment has a fix for Touch ID not working, and fixed for me.
 
Have you tried all ten fingers? Between dry skin / climate, age related changes to skin, even washing your hands religiously can all reduce the definition of the fingerprint ridges Touch ID attempts to read. Usually ridge definition varies from the index finger. A sparing amount of lotion might also help.
 
The only people I've had problems with Touch ID on are very old (75+), smokers, people who are almost constantly dehydrated or total alcoholics. If you can control any of those, I would suggest trying to do so and using some moisturising cream.

Edit: my mother is all of those...
 
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agregson said:
I have MBA 8/256 M1 and love it. Also have iMac 24 16/512 and love it. Complements the iPad Pro 12.9 M1 and iPhone 13 Pro Max. MBA and iMac replaced previous rMB and iMac 27.

I detest TouchID. It rarely works for much more than a few days on MBA. iMac seems more robust. I was delighted to see the back of TouchID as it simply never worked reliably for me on any iOS device. I simply detest it. I suffer from dry fingers and circulation can be variable. As a result TouchID is simply awful for me. A little surprised it has stayed working on the iMac keyboard since I got iMac a month ago. This is longest in history of Apple TouchID that I have gone without a need to retrain it.

I was delighted to see FaceID arrive and was a main reason to quickly upgrade iPad out of my usual 2 year cycle. I would love it on iMac and MBA.

Has anyone else had any similar issues? It really does spoil the experience for me and always has done. At least now I can authenticate with Apple Watch as an alternative.
Click to expand...
NEVER had an issue with TouchID, either on a Mac or when it was on iPhone.
 
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agregson said:
I have MBA 8/256 M1 and love it. Also have iMac 24 16/512 and love it. Complements the iPad Pro 12.9 M1 and iPhone 13 Pro Max. MBA and iMac replaced previous rMB and iMac 27.

I detest TouchID. It rarely works for much more than a few days on MBA. iMac seems more robust. I was delighted to see the back of TouchID as it simply never worked reliably for me on any iOS device. I simply detest it. I suffer from dry fingers and circulation can be variable. As a result TouchID is simply awful for me. A little surprised it has stayed working on the iMac keyboard since I got iMac a month ago. This is longest in history of Apple TouchID that I have gone without a need to retrain it.

I was delighted to see FaceID arrive and was a main reason to quickly upgrade iPad out of my usual 2 year cycle. I would love it on iMac and MBA.

Has anyone else had any similar issues? It really does spoil the experience for me and always has done. At least now I can authenticate with Apple Watch as an alternative.
Click to expand...
An option no one has brought up yet, you could just turn it off. We used Macs for decades without any biometrics. My password for my Mac is used nowhere else, is a random string, and I can type it faster than reaching for touchID and letting it register. I really don’t know if touchID actually adds anything but complexity no one asks for.
 
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Some of us would disagree. I HATE typing passwords. More than I hate my mother in law. iPhone PIN and even Windows PIN are better than passwords. But I still prefer biometrics.

Stevenyo said:
An option no one has brought up yet, you could just turn it off. We used Macs for decades without any biometrics. My password for my Mac is used nowhere else, is a random string, and I can type it faster than reaching for touchID and letting it register. I really don’t know if touchID actually adds anything but complexity no one asks for.
Click to expand...
 
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Earlier versions of the Touch ID worked poorly for me, too. However, I'm having much better luck with the Touch ID sensors on my 2022 MBA M2 and 2021 MBP 14"
 
I’d suggest OP to use index finger only (if not doing so already), I’ve used this method for > 1 year and among all the other annoying things in life, this is far from the thing, or even a thing, that annoys me. If anything it feels smooth and secure. If you really feel that strongly about it, and can’t get used to it with time, keep in mind as others noted above that you can turn it off and use a small easy to type word as a passcode. It could also be turned off completely —> not 100% sure about this.
 
raylo32 said:
Some of us would disagree. I HATE typing passwords. More than I hate my mother in law. iPhone PIN and even Windows PIN are better than passwords. But I still prefer biometrics.
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Irrational hate for typing a few characters aside, a PIN is a password. There's nothing stopping you from making your password numerical. There's also the option to not even use a password for login. TouchID is an extra gimmick, I would never notice if my current MBP didn't have it.

I've been typing the same short random string for decades, it's second nature/muscle memory and always works. TouchID is a new gesture and works like 80% of the time.

I could see the beenfit to FaceID, it actually saves effort, but I fail to see what I gain with TouchID. OP isn't missing much.

I'd recommend they Turn off TouchID, make sure they have their mac setup to ask for their password as rarely as possible (seriously, how often do you need to prove you're you?) and get on with life.
 
ndouglas said:
I’d suggest OP to use index finger only (if not doing so already), I’ve used this method for > 1 year and among all the other annoying things in life, this is far from the thing, or even a thing, that annoys me. If anything it feels smooth and secure. If you really feel that strongly about it, and can’t get used to it with time, keep in mind as others noted above that you can turn it off and use a small easy to type word as a passcode. It could also be turned off completely —> not 100% sure about this.
Click to expand...
Yeah, you can set your use account to have no password as well as just delete all fingers from or never set up TouchID. Wouldn't recommend having absolutely no password protection on your Mac, but it's an option!
 
I'd say faceID would be a more elegant solution on a macbook. It's pretty much guaranteed to get you in a good-enough angle and it would do that ever so slightly faster vs you having time to reach the TouchID-button after opening the lid.

And ironically enough I'd prefer having TouchID on my phone. (Not enough to go for the SE due to its other limitations.) That thing pretty often refuses my face because of angles and distances not being ideal.

Why the mega-notch on the new macbooks doesn't have this feature is anyone's guess. I know there is speculation that the intention is to add it but I wouldn't be so sure.
 
Danfango said:
The only people I've had problems with Touch ID on are very old (75+), smokers, people who are almost constantly dehydrated or total alcoholics. If you can control any of those, I would suggest trying to do so and using some moisturising cream.

Edit: my mother is all of those...
Click to expand...
And I am none of these and have issues with touchid, on my MBA and on the old iPhones.
 
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