Nope! My S10e has an ergonomic fingerprint reader that doubles as a gesture pad for bringing down the notificanotification shade. For some of us, it never really left.
If you want both face and fingerprint unlocks, the Android ecosystem has many options for you, even though I don't think any of them has face unlocks that are as "secure" as the iPhone's. If you want to stick to iOS, the SE still has a good ol' TouchID sensor and I'm pretty happy with mine, with my only complaint being the anemic battery life. If you want an SE, I would advise holding off for a few weeks, as it is expected to get a refresh in March.
I always had the Apple Watch solution, but I see what you mean. I live in a colder climate so I wear gloves often and the faceid is more convenient there.
Both have their pros and cons.
Gloves in colder climate is a great point. Shows how wide product designers need to think when it comes to mass adoption.
I upgraded from 1st generation SE to 13 pro recently, was disappointed that they didn't throw a fingerprint reader in there somewhere so that you can choose the right auth for the right occasion.
I didn't miss the headphone jack that seemed to be such a flashpoint, and that's after over a decade of having a cord from ears down into my pocket. Honestly I'm kind of thankful to Apple for pushing me to bluetooth headsets - they had come a long way since the one-eared cyborg-wannabe device of the mid 00's.
That is to say I try not to be too much of a curmudgeon (not always successfully), but I still miss TouchID. I like the intentionality of putting my finger on the scanner to unlock rather than waving a phone in front of my face and making sure I've got the right distance and angle.
It doesn't help that mask wearing became common just after FaceID took over. So yes, I miss it too.
Not TouchID, but I specifically bought a last-gen Android phone with a fingerprint reader because I hate Face Unlock (or whatever it's called now). Being able to unlock my phone at a simple touch as soon as it leaves my pocket is awesome, and beats having to glare at the screen which breaks when I'm wearing sunglasses or a mask.
Yes. I'm wearing helmets or masks (motorcycle helmet, full-face balaclavas) that obscure my face all the time and sometimes I just disable FaceID entirely. I don't hate it, I just wish I had both options.
TouchID on a motorcycle usually isn't that much better because gloves. It's still quicker to pull a card from my wallet and tap-to-pay at the gas station.
I ride a bicycle everywhere, and will frequently pull out the iPhone to check map directions. With the TouchID phone, I could tug it just out of the pocket at waist height, unlock, and glance down. Now I have to lift it up and give it my full attention to unlock. Sucks, hugely inferior.
I would probably still stick to FaceID for the big oled screen, but it they added the fingerprint sensor to the lock button a la iPad Air, that seems like the best of every world!
There is something I don’t like about Face ID. The phone does not have the button press to know when to turn the screen on so it tries to guess. It often turns the screen on for no reason, and then buttons on the screen can acidentally be pressed. It often turns my music off or turns my flashlight on and I end up walking around with my pants pocket glowing.
Turning the phone to face away from my body helps, and is the opposite of what I used to do.
Same problem here, I often activate the camera/flashlight by picking it up off the table. And because I have an Apple Watch it unlocks due to the proximity, and I sometimes accidentally launch apps. It's a shame the Apple Watch unlock doesn't ever work when I actually want to use the phone.
Yup! I really miss TouchID. I upgraded an old iPhone 6 to iPhone 12 mini last year, but I find FaceID sometimes a little annoying to use (with and without covid mask, but specially with it). Many times I find myself turning the screen off and on just so it can get a new GO on trying to look at my face and unlocking the phone. And many times I end up typing my 6 digit pin.
I can't tell which one is more "secure" though, but I found TouchID really convenient.
For some reason, TouchID wouldn't work well with my fingers. I'd have to reenroll the same finger every few weeks for it to be reliable (probably related to medical condition - I have unusually salty skin, as well as a condition that can cause finger-tip clubbing). That said, I feel it has been improved, as I don't seem to have that issue with my TouchID MBP and Magic Keyboard.
Not at all. In fact it appears to be a problem for older people. Both my parents it doesn’t work well for I suspect due to poor dexterity as you get older and skin problems.
I prefer my Apple Watch and proximity unlocking. That is fairly decent and works without touching or staring at anything on my iPhone and MacBook.
FaceID doesn't work with mask. Even on iOS 15.4 it only works for unlocking, and not for payment. ( Which seems like there are two level of security with Face ID, but I haven't seen any decent explanation yet)
Touch ID also works better with payment situation where you need to authenticate after you touched the NFC. So you dont need to bring it up to your Face again, with Touch ID you are moving your fingers only.
Most if not all of these aren't US problems. That is why Apple doesn't really cares about it. And hence it is unlikely to come back. We would have had supply chain leaks if power button Touch ID is heading to iPhone 14 given the volume required.
The other thing I really like about Touch ID, when I move my finger on top, it is a single action / signal to my brain to say I am authenticating something. And not having to push the power button twice for FaceID in certain situation is also a plus. Unlocking a phone on the table without having to pick it up in front of my face, especially during meetings.
May be a wearable like Apple Watch is the solution to all of these. But I dislike Apple watch. Digital Crown should be in the middle, and I still prefer my watch in circle. And I just dont like charging my watch every other day.
For me, the biggest pain point with Touch ID was that it didn't work well in the rain, which is precisely the moment when the touch screen for manual password doesn't work all that great either.
I'm hoping masks are more of a transient thing, long-term, than the rain.
FaceID doesn’t work with sunglasses on either. It would be nice if we could just have both to cover most weather scenarios. Of course too much face covering and gloves in the winter and neither are going to work then (;
It definitely doesn’t work with mine, just a black pair of Ray-Bans. I just tried it again to make sure it hasn’t changed with the latest update. I use my phone as an offline GPS for hiking and it’s been a constant frustration for me, as there is a significant delay before it gives you the keypad after FaceID fails. I’ve tried setting up an “alternative appearance” in FaceID with my sunglasses on and it just complains that my face is obstructed.
If I designed the system, I would be continuously training the FaceID model to account for false negatives based on a correctly entered PIN after a failed FaceID unlock.
When FaceID was announced, they also said it should also continue to work with varying amounts of facial hair - which I have also found to be true.
The "trick" for this to work flawlessly (at least for myself) is to set up regular face-ID; and then setup an "alternate" appearance with sunglasses or whatever other items/accessories might cause problems.
Never had any issues; especially if you setup the alternate appearance with a mask / partially obstructed face.
Polarized sunglasses block the phone's sensors, so it can't confirm you're actually looking at the screen—That someone isn't trying to unlock it e.g. while you're asleep.
If you turn off "Require Attention for Face ID" in Face ID settings it'll work with sunglasses.
According to Apple, "Face ID is designed to work with hats, scarves, glasses, contact lenses, and many sunglasses." (https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208108) and from my experience, it works fine with my polarized sunglasses, but it sounds like it doesn't work for everyone.
I know you mentioned not liking the Apple Watch, but if you do have one, FaceID works just fine with masks when you have an Apple Watch paired and the feature enabled.
It works just fine until it doesn't. I went on a trip last week that involved frequent mask wearing. Unlock with Apple Watch worked on the first day, then every unlock after that involved typing in my passcode or pulling down my mask. No amount of restarting/airplane mode cycling got it working again... until I got home.
The year FaceID came out I was in a country where mask wearing was popular (pre-covid) I was so frustrated that my new phone couldn't open easily and this is after years of Apple claiming to promote "diversity". Instead of only focusing on hiring people with the same backgrounds who look different, I wish they would actually focus on getting people who live differently.
> Even on iOS 15.4 it only works for unlocking, and not for payment. ( Which seems like there are two level of security with Face ID, but I haven't seen any decent explanation yet)
I thought this was sucky also, but then realized payment could be done with my Apple Watch without unlocking as long as the watch was unlocked (and is somewhat secure because the watch auto locks when it comes off your wrist). This is really convenient, and now I’m using my watch for most of my payments.
> May be a wearable like Apple Watch is the solution to all of these. But I dislike Apple watch. Digital Crown should be in the middle, and I still prefer my watch in circle. And I just dont like charging my watch every other day.
Ah, so you already know the trick then, but can’t take advantage of it. Holding out will get worse as things like AutoKey become more pervasive (unlock your car or house by bringing your watch up to the lock, no unlock or explicit activation needed). Also, you can use your watch to unlock your phone (I guess, my security policy at work doesn’t let me try it).
iphone 8 is still a perfectly serviceable phone if you don't play games.
i've got the new SE and it's perfect - just the right size, touch id, doesn't cost an arm and a leg (compared to the bigger iphones, at least...), got a good-enough camera.
Yes, and I think Apple knew that FaceID is basically not as good of an experience in a variety of circumstances but decided that having an (almost) unobstructed screen was worth it. I hope one day we get it back in some form.
Yes.... But you know what I REALLY miss that I didn't expect to? Touchbar on the Macbook Pro. I hated that stupid touch bar, but on the new macbook pro it's gone, and I miss it so much. I'm dyslexic and having the words pop up predictively made me so efficient, I find myself going back to my old macbook pro when doing long from writing as I'm considerably faster on it as I don't have to stop and think about every single word. If someone wrote an app that mimics the touchbar predictive text, I'd buy it.
I wish the M1's had it too, I skipped everything by holding onto a maxed out mid-2015 mbp. I'm glad Apple got rid of the butterfly keyboard, added ports back, but I was never against the touch bar, I wanted to play with it. I think I would have had an issue missing a separate function key bar though.
Surely there is someone who could program an on-screen predictive box that is more easily readable than this current possible solution for this [0]. Maybe this TouchBar simulator is something that you could try [1]? I wonder if it works on machines that don't have it at all.
I loved the Touchbar from day one. I ultimately had about 60 custom buttons spread across a dozen apps. Now I’m back to wondering if F4 is mapped to “toggle responsive design mode” or “clear cache and refresh”.
The touch bar was very interesting tech! My favorite use was scrubbing songs/videos and being able to adjust the brightness of my monitor and screen independently. That's where the tech shined- having context-dependent UI elements. When you hit the physical brightness button, you just have to guess what's going to get adjusted.
I think with most things, the answer here was to have a mix of keys and buttons. With 100% TB, it's slow to change volume/brightness. With 100% keys, I've got all these extra keys I can't use (you can re-bind them with 3rd party software, but it's fairly static).
I'd personally pull like, F3-F9 in favor of a touch bar, and then be able to configure the remaining buttons. I'm a little sad reaction was so strongly against the idea on the whole, it definitely had potential.
Apple has this idea that as few ports and buttons as possible is better because design. No amount of evidence to the contrary can change their minds. Form over function.
I wonder if the rest of our hands (sans finger tips) are unique "enough" for the purpose of unlocking phones. Would be nice if just holding the phone naturally (palm touching one side of phone and part of a few fingers touching the other side) would be sufficient.
Probably, but the actual hardware would need to cover the entire phone, which I think would be the issue. Not sure if that'd have battery life implications as well.
Not an iPhone user, but I have the option of touch or face on Android, and I prefer touch. Why? Because I know exactly when my screen will light up - when I touch it. Way too many embarrassing moments with face unlock turning the screen on a second before I was ready, while trying to show someone something.
FaceID doesn't work with masks which makes it essentially useless for a large part of the day for a huge number of people. The only way to somewhat fix this appears to be to buy an Apple Watch.
No, because it hasn't gone anywhere. Apple still sell iPhones that support Touch ID (I have the latest iPhone SE which is still quite recent), and they have included it on the macbook pro for several years.
If Touch ID is important to you then just buy the current-model iPhone SE that supports it.
TouchID is inconvenient in the winter if you wear gloves. However, you need to take off your gloves anyway.
However, Face ID does not work with my sun glasses on, and I don't need to take my sun glasses off to view and use my phone. It also doesn't work well with face masks (iOS 15.3) though we're now getting rid of them in the Netherlands.
Yes, I do miss Touch ID and if this cannot be fixed in software, I really like a back-side Touch ID in addition to Face ID. Face ID _is_ intelligent in many cases and it is a good addition.
I find you mostly need to take your winter gloves off to do anything with the device once it is unlocked, anyway. You can kind of take photos using the volume button, but good luck changing the mode or zoom.
I wouldn’t mind if future iPhone models integrated Touch ID into the sleep button (as some iPad models do now), but I’m not sure that I’d want dedicated front bezel or a cutout on the back for it. In-screen readers are a possibility (many Android phones implement this) but those seem very hit or miss in terms of performance and overcomplicated compared to just making a button host the feature instead.
But overall, Face ID works well enough, at least when paired with an Apple Watch for payments (reducing need to use Face ID in masked situations).
Same here. The 2016 is still awesome and even gets all the OS updated so far. I hope this will continue because even the new SE is too big, in my opinion.
++ original SE. A little large compared to the 4S but the TouchID is great. Saw current gen nighttime photos on a camping trip and am reconsidering though...
104 comments
[ 0.18 ms ] story [ 432 ms ] threadEven without masks I preferred touch ID, you're advertising your phone more when you're staring at it, was always more seamless with touch ID.
I upgraded from 1st generation SE to 13 pro recently, was disappointed that they didn't throw a fingerprint reader in there somewhere so that you can choose the right auth for the right occasion.
That is to say I try not to be too much of a curmudgeon (not always successfully), but I still miss TouchID. I like the intentionality of putting my finger on the scanner to unlock rather than waving a phone in front of my face and making sure I've got the right distance and angle.
It doesn't help that mask wearing became common just after FaceID took over. So yes, I miss it too.
I would probably still stick to FaceID for the big oled screen, but it they added the fingerprint sensor to the lock button a la iPad Air, that seems like the best of every world!
Turning the phone to face away from my body helps, and is the opposite of what I used to do.
It is in Settings > Display Brightness.
Edit: Personally I think this should have been the default option.
I can't tell which one is more "secure" though, but I found TouchID really convenient.
I prefer my Apple Watch and proximity unlocking. That is fairly decent and works without touching or staring at anything on my iPhone and MacBook.
Touch ID also works better with payment situation where you need to authenticate after you touched the NFC. So you dont need to bring it up to your Face again, with Touch ID you are moving your fingers only.
Most if not all of these aren't US problems. That is why Apple doesn't really cares about it. And hence it is unlikely to come back. We would have had supply chain leaks if power button Touch ID is heading to iPhone 14 given the volume required.
The other thing I really like about Touch ID, when I move my finger on top, it is a single action / signal to my brain to say I am authenticating something. And not having to push the power button twice for FaceID in certain situation is also a plus. Unlocking a phone on the table without having to pick it up in front of my face, especially during meetings.
May be a wearable like Apple Watch is the solution to all of these. But I dislike Apple watch. Digital Crown should be in the middle, and I still prefer my watch in circle. And I just dont like charging my watch every other day.
I'm hoping masks are more of a transient thing, long-term, than the rain.
You can turn off "Required Attention for Face ID" in the Settings as a workaround.
When FaceID was announced, they also said it should also continue to work with varying amounts of facial hair - which I have also found to be true.
Never had any issues; especially if you setup the alternate appearance with a mask / partially obstructed face.
If you turn off "Require Attention for Face ID" in Face ID settings it'll work with sunglasses.
The latest iOS beta adds this.
Easy answer: confidence intervals
I thought this was sucky also, but then realized payment could be done with my Apple Watch without unlocking as long as the watch was unlocked (and is somewhat secure because the watch auto locks when it comes off your wrist). This is really convenient, and now I’m using my watch for most of my payments.
> May be a wearable like Apple Watch is the solution to all of these. But I dislike Apple watch. Digital Crown should be in the middle, and I still prefer my watch in circle. And I just dont like charging my watch every other day.
Ah, so you already know the trick then, but can’t take advantage of it. Holding out will get worse as things like AutoKey become more pervasive (unlock your car or house by bringing your watch up to the lock, no unlock or explicit activation needed). Also, you can use your watch to unlock your phone (I guess, my security policy at work doesn’t let me try it).
i've got the new SE and it's perfect - just the right size, touch id, doesn't cost an arm and a leg (compared to the bigger iphones, at least...), got a good-enough camera.
[0] https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/326664/can-i-get-w...
[1] https://github.com/sindresorhus/touch-bar-simulator
I think with most things, the answer here was to have a mix of keys and buttons. With 100% TB, it's slow to change volume/brightness. With 100% keys, I've got all these extra keys I can't use (you can re-bind them with 3rd party software, but it's fairly static).
I'd personally pull like, F3-F9 in favor of a touch bar, and then be able to configure the remaining buttons. I'm a little sad reaction was so strongly against the idea on the whole, it definitely had potential.
Make it shorter, put in a physical escape key and it'd be perfect.
The apple-pay workflow is far clunkier even without a mask, with lots of "double clicking" to authorise in addition to lining up the face.
I still have touch id on my iPad and I truly miss face id, I find it quicker and more accurate. Often I find myself staring at my iPad haha.
That's not a FaceID issue, that's an Android issue. iPhones will not automatically log into the phone after it unlocks, it stays on the lock screen.
If Touch ID is important to you then just buy the current-model iPhone SE that supports it.
However, Face ID does not work with my sun glasses on, and I don't need to take my sun glasses off to view and use my phone. It also doesn't work well with face masks (iOS 15.3) though we're now getting rid of them in the Netherlands.
Yes, I do miss Touch ID and if this cannot be fixed in software, I really like a back-side Touch ID in addition to Face ID. Face ID _is_ intelligent in many cases and it is a good addition.
But overall, Face ID works well enough, at least when paired with an Apple Watch for payments (reducing need to use Face ID in masked situations).