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Why do people say Face ID is so slow?

W

Wishbrah

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 20, 2013
235
8
Face ID takes maybe 0.5 seconds longer than Touch ID. What are you missing out on in life when you lose that one half of a second?

If you take into account having something on your finger (water, oil, dirt, etc), Face ID wins automatically. You have to wipe off your finger and wipe off the home button. Don't take off all of it and Touch ID fails again.

If you take into account having gloves on, you have to take them off for Touch ID. Face ID wins automatically.

If you are having difficulty with Face ID in general (i.e. several failed attempts), you need to re-program it and try again. Remember, you need to look at your phone while you're rotating your head (some people can't walk and chew gum at the same time).

This is why giving up screen real estate for a physical button is silly.
 
boshii

boshii

macrumors 68040
Jul 6, 2008
3,699
784
Atlanta, GA
It is slower to unlock. People are used to pulling their phone out with their thumb on the button to get right into the phone.

c65qiUC.gif
 
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caesarp

macrumors 65816
Sep 30, 2012
1,078
619
Wishbrah said:
Face ID takes maybe 0.5 seconds longer than Touch ID. What are you missing out on in life when you lose that one half of a second?

If you take into account having something on your finger (water, oil, dirt, etc), Face ID wins automatically. You have to wipe off your finger and wipe off the home button. Don't take off all of it and Touch ID fails again.

If you take into account having gloves on, you have to take them off for Touch ID. Face ID wins automatically.

If you are having difficulty with Face ID in general (i.e. several failed attempts), you need to re-program it and try again. Remember, you need to look at your phone while you're rotating your head (some people can't walk and chew gum at the same time).

This is why giving up screen real estate for a physical button is silly.
Click to expand...

No one is saying face id is slow. It is slightly less fast than touch id when unlocking the phone. Still fast, just a tad less fast than Touch ID in that one circumstance. But its faster with Apple Pay and faster when authenticating apps and logging into websites.
 
mcdj

mcdj

macrumors G3
Jul 10, 2007
8,969
4,225
NYC
dennysanders said:
who is saying that it's slow?
Click to expand...
Plenty of people on this forum. Like me.

And to the OP, some studies indicate the average smart phone owner checks their smartphone 85 times a day, while one report claims millennials check upwards of 150 times per day.

Even if you round that down to 50 times a day, an extra 1/2 seconds spent unlocking the phone is an extra 2.6 hours per year.

If Face ID is here to stay and doesn’t get any faster, over the course of 10 years, you’ll spend an entire day staring at your phone screen, waiting.

At the end of your life, you’ll ask your doctor to keep you going for one more day, and they’ll say “Sorry, you used that day staring at your phone.”
 
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mcarthon

macrumors 6502
Jun 18, 2010
273
65
boshii said:
It is slower to unlock. People are used to pulling their phone out with their thumb on the button to get right into the phone.

c65qiUC.gif
Click to expand...

It might a millisecond slower to unlock but it makes up for it by being fastwe in everything else
 
joonyaboy

joonyaboy

macrumors 6502
Jun 27, 2010
336
297
FL
Depends how you use it. I don’t even think about FaceId whereas I always thought about TouchId. My favorite is touching a Lockscreen notification. Before you press it and THEN have to TouchID. Now it goes right in because FaceId has already Id’d you
 
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alphaod

alphaod

macrumors Core
Feb 9, 2008
22,183
1,245
NYC
boshii said:
It is slower to unlock. People are used to pulling their phone out with their thumb on the button to get right into the phone.

c65qiUC.gif
Click to expand...

Try that again when you've just finish working out and your hands are sweaty.

Or the other dozens of times my fingerprints don't register and then I have to re-enter my password.

My FaceID also fails at times. It's almost guaranteed to fail when I first get up in the morning to look at the phone something that wasn't an issue with TouchID.

For me it's more advantages and less inconveniences.
 
4

44267547

Cancelled
Jul 12, 2016
37,642
42,494
Face ID might be somewhat slower, but for the majority who are not tech enthusiasts , they likely won't notice it. But like touch ID, Face ID will improve With the software and hardware overtime.
 
UnifiedMelody

UnifiedMelody

macrumors 6502
Nov 17, 2017
299
139
Australia
Wishbrah said:
Face ID takes maybe 0.5 seconds longer than Touch ID. What are you missing out on in life when you lose that one half of a second?

If you take into account having something on your finger (water, oil, dirt, etc), Face ID wins automatically. You have to wipe off your finger and wipe off the home button. Don't take off all of it and Touch ID fails again.

If you take into account having gloves on, you have to take them off for Touch ID. Face ID wins automatically.

If you are having difficulty with Face ID in general (i.e. several failed attempts), you need to re-program it and try again. Remember, you need to look at your phone while you're rotating your head (some people can't walk and chew gum at the same time).

This is why giving up screen real estate for a physical button is silly.
Click to expand...

I prefer face id imo, don't need to type in passwords now especially with all the sites it is so seamless, all i do is just prompt safari to auto fill using face id and it's faster than pulling the finger to the sensor ^_^ wonder if people have tried that, faceID > touchID when it comes to using historical passwords saved on safari.
 
Peanut207

Peanut207

macrumors 6502
Mar 2, 2010
498
119
It’s still a lot faster than Touch ID was when it first came out on iPhone.

Face ID is by no means slow and yes it is slightly slower than Touch ID right now. However, it is new and I’m betting it will be faster in next years iPhone and so on and so forth. Who knows, maybe a software update down the line will speed it up. I love Face ID and am glad Apple ditched Touch ID.
 
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iosuser

iosuser

macrumors 65816
Mar 12, 2012
1,005
752
The same can be said for many things - apps loading seconds slower, web pages loading milliseconds slower, etc., giving the impression of lag.

Here's what I do sometimes that can't be done on the X. Putting on my watch when the phone is already in my pocket, so the watch is locked. With the 7 I just reach into my pocket, press the home button, watch unlocks, and I lock the phone. All without looking ;) Yes I could've just entered my pass code on the watch itself, but it's a couple seconds slower ;)
 
JPack

JPack

macrumors G5
Mar 27, 2017
13,287
25,610
0.5 seconds is a long time for people used to a fast unlock. It's the difference between an iPhone 6 unlocking and an iPhone 8.
 
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Ipadfever

Ipadfever

macrumors 6502a
Apr 22, 2012
756
340
mcdj said:
Plenty of people on this forum. Like me.

And to the OP, some studies indicate the average smart phone owner checks their smartphone 85 times a day, while one report claims millennials check upwards of 150 times per day.

Even if you round that down to 50 times a day, an extra 1/2 seconds spent unlocking the phone is an extra 2.6 hours per year.

If Face ID is here to stay and doesn’t get any faster, over the course of 10 years, you’ll spend an entire day staring at your phone screen, waiting.

At the end of your life, you’ll ask your doctor to keep you going for one more day, and they’ll say “Sorry, you used that day staring at your phone.”
Click to expand...
I was going to show the math but you beat me and nailed it lol
 
supertomtom

supertomtom

macrumors 6502a
Sep 21, 2007
638
671
Gold Coast, Australia
Sure it may be half a second longer to unlock, but it’s faster taking into account the number of times I have to wipe my finger before using touchID or making re-attempts
 
F

Flyer888

macrumors member
Nov 3, 2017
60
30
It sure does feel slower than TouchID (but not the first gen one like on the 6 and older), but I've been in many occasions where my thumb is just oily or sweaty like you said.
With that being said though, I really hope they keep the TouchID somewhere (Apple logo on the back maybe?) along with FaceID.
 
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