Face ID and Touch ID both work better under different circumstances and both fail under different circumstances. If it’s cold and I’m wearing gloves, Apple Pay with Touch ID doesn’t work but Face ID does. If it’s really cold though and I’m wearing a scarf, it is easier to take my gloves off and use Touch ID. That said, my face is generally not obscured in day to day usage. Where Touch ID typically came up short was because of wet fingers or grime on the Touch ID sensor itself, and this occurred surprisingly often. Where Face ID comes up short is when the camera can’t get a clear reading due to the angle or distance of the phone from my face. Touch ID didn’t have this problem because the “target” was the home button, which you can see and feel. Positioning your finger was obvious. The target is less clear with Face ID because there is no real target other than looking at your phone. Perhaps what is needed, rather than a passcode prompt after a split second, is some sort of graphic that guides the user to move the phone into a good position for a scan. It needs to allow the user to correct their facial positioning. Touch ID allowed for this because you could quickly reposition your finger of the scan failed and it only prompted for a passcode after several attempts. I’ve noticed that Face ID often tries to scan my face as I’m lifting the phone with raise to wake. Because it scans so quickly, it often fails because I haven’t fully raised the phone to a good angle. I suspect these kinks will be worked out and generally feel Face ID will be superior in the long run though.
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iPhone X Face ID is crap....
- Thread starter scaramoosh
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There is enough people that don’t like Face ID to really wonder why it is that many of us have no issues with it. I absolutely love Face ID and it works way more reliably for me than TouchID on my work issued iPhone 7 that I carry side by side with my X. When I had my Note 8 I was in the group that could not get it to work reliably and I concluded it was because I have small eyes and the iris scanner was having more difficulty with people like me who due to ethnicity or other reasons have small squinty eyes. Since with FaceID I am in the group where it works wonderfully well I’m trying to figure out why it is that it doesn’t work for that group of people who are having issues with it. Could it be some facial feature that Face ID works well on that some don’t have? Is it because those who have no issues have features FaceID is better at detecting? For example I have a big nose. Do those of you guys who have issues with Face ID have big noses or little ones? LOL, I know this sounds funny but I would really love to be able to pinpoint the differences.
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Unfortunately, you will have people saying FaceID works 100 percent of the times because they are apple loyalists. And you will have folks saying FaceID sucks because they like to hate on apple. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. Personally I have accepted that FaceID works just as well as the first gen TouchID, but not as well as the 2nd gen TouchID sensor.
Or a third group like me. I found that FaceID worked basically 100% of the time (or more), but I didn't really like how it made me use the phone. Experimenting with face scanning methods helped a lot.
When I say 100% or more, what I mean (and this was one of my irritations with FID) was that sometimes just picking up the phone unlocked it at times when I didn't want it unlocked, requiring a manual lock (press the side button). Basically never happened with TouchID because you can just avoid grabbing the phone by the home button.
As with TouchID, I think there will be significant hardware and software improvements over the next two years.
If FaceID unlocks your phone in this situation, no need to press the side button to manually lock. It will lock again on its own.
I have Raise to Wake off. No erroneous wakes for me. Tapping the home screen is just as fast.
I have it set to wait five minutes to auto-lock, though, and especially with the X any sort of screen contact could wind up launching who knows what...or at least I am concerned about that, so I felt I needed to manually lock it, immediately.
And the thing about the tap is that it then becomes a two-handed phone, at least briefly.
I really appreciate the tech. I don't think the X is in any way a beta product. On the contrary, if I'd worked on the phone, I'd be incredibly proud of what we achieved. But in 2018 it's not the best product for me. I can wait. On the whole, the iPhone has really had a consistent upward trajectory over time and I expect the X is just another step in that direction.
While I agree that Touch ID was faster, more versatile and more accurate I don’t think Face ID is crap. It’s worse than Touch ID but it still works very well. The scenarios you describe I also have issues with on a daily basis.
I just read and article today suggesting resetting Face ID but hold the phone down while training it. Since that is where your normally unlock your phone. I’m going to give that a try.
Now I 100% disagree with your gestures comments. That my absolute favorite thing about the X and I find it to be the best iOS navigation we have ever had.
Just set my phone up with raise to wake and 5 minute auto-lock.
1. Raise phone
2. Phone shows unlocked with no touch to the screen
3. 5 seconds later screen goes dark and phone is relocked
If you don't swipe up, phone isn't totally unlocked.
Thank you - I returned the phone but that sounds right, though it brings me back to the point about the X being more of a two-hand phone than a TouchID phone - because you need that swipe up even if you don't have to tap the screen. (I had rise to wake turned off - always have, even on my Apple Watch - personal preference.) I remember someone discussing the gestures and saying he could do the swipe up with the same hand he was holding the phone with - I have big hands but I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work well for me, though it's too late to test.
When they worked well (for me), the gestures are brilliant, just like the hardware. But the ones that didn't work well for me were a PITA. For example, the wake up/unlock process felt too involved, compared to TouchID. I also didn't like having to reach all the way up into the corners to get the control center and notifications. The X has a very tall screen, and reachability (on all Apple phones) has always been fiddly for me.
I'm feeling like I'm sounding very negative - I don't mean to be. FaceID as pure tech worked great, in my opinion, and the hardware is brilliant. For me, the UI and UX needed some tweaks. But as I think I keep saying, I think the title of this thread is crazy.
The auto-lock takes affect only after you swipe up to get to the home screen. If FaceID unlocks, and you do not swipe up, the display will turn off after 5 seconds. There is no need to press the side button to lock. Although you totally can
I totally use my X one handed. And I do not have large hands. Tap, and swipe up. When FaceID works, it's amazingly fast.
From reading your posts, I totally understand that you certainly appreciate the tech. It's nice to be able to discuss the X's good and bad points without it spiraling out of control.
The auto-lock takes affect only after you swipe up to get to the home screen. If FaceID unlocks, and you do not swipe up, the display will turn off after 5 seconds. There is no need to press the side button to lock. Although you totally can
I didn't know that...thank you!
Oh, I feel your pain. In my opinion, FaceID really only authenticates you. You technically swipe up to unlock. Just like the old days of swiping right to unlock. With TouchID, apple introduced the press home to unlock. So the fingerprint sensor authenticated you, but you needed to press home to unlock. Apple also miraculously offered a choice to simply rest our finger on the sensor to authenticate and unlock. Seems the same choice is missing from the X.
On the other hand, even though I chose to unlock by touching the sensor on my 7+, notifications were always a pain. I used raise to wake so most of the times I could see my notifications on the lock screen. Many times in haste, I would raise to wake while my finger was on the sensor and blow right past my notifications. I can see the same thing happening with the X if FaceID authenticated and unlocked at the same time.
Agreed. This must be fixed by apple as for me, it was not a very well thought out procedure. I can think of many ways more intuitive than what apple deployed for the X. Move the swipes to the bottom. Swipe up from either the right or left to invoke control center. Or swipe up from anywhere above the dock. 3D touch on the bottom of the screen or even the left side (like previous iPhones). The last thought seems rational as in order to invoke reachability, you need to swipe down on the home bar. So interaction with the home bar has already been programmed.
Same goes for closing apps. Why enter the app switcher screen only to need to long press on an app to invoke the delete icons? Why not just simply swipe up on the app? Like the way it is done on the iPad in iOS11? Why the extra step? Or how about once your swipe up to get to the app switcher, the delete icons are automatically invoked?
I wonder if touch id could be improved for wet / grimy fingers. I had fingerprint scanner on my Nexus 6p and now my current device an HTC u11. With the Nexus, even with wet or dirty fingers I didn't have much issues unlocking my phone. If it didn't work the first time, it almost certainly did on the 2nd. However, with the HTC, once my finger is wet or dirty it fails perhaps 60% of the time and a lot of times doesn't even work after multiple retries.
Pain - well, after all, it is just a phone.
Corners - so much thought went into the X; I'm sure they thought about alternatives and had good reasons. But the top corners of a very tall display? There must be a better answer. (How about the bottom corners?)
Closing apps - OMG! I got very good at that, but it took some practice and some thinking. And the old way was soooo much faster! I know - we don't have to do that. But I do and I have since the 4...
I am sure we are all headed toward gestures and OLED and all that stuff, and I'm ok with that. I just want another year or two, I don't move as fast as I used to.
Pain - well, after all, it is just a phone.
Corners - so much thought went into the X; I'm sure they thought about alternatives and had good reasons. But the top corners of a very tall display? There must be a better answer. (How about the bottom corners?)
Closing apps - OMG! I got very good at that, but it took some practice and some thinking. And the old way was soooo much faster! I know - we don't have to do that. But I do and I have since the 4...
I am sure we are all headed toward gestures and OLED and all that stuff, and I'm ok with that. I just want another year or two, I don't move as fast as I used to.
LOL we are all definitely more resistant to change as we age. I hold my phone from the middle so pulling from the top or the bottom is the same for me. As far as closing apps I agree it was easier than before but I have begun to rid myself of the habit of closing apps because of it and because it’s not usually necessary to close them (I think that’s why Apple made it more difficult personally). And since I’m a multi OS user, coming from Android, the gestures feel a lot smoother to me than buttons. Love the richer blacks of OLED as well. For as much as I like the products of the past I still yearn for improvements which require of me to be able to accept change.
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Yes, I get that completely. Part of the fun of using the X for five weeks was learning new tricks.
Maybe it could. But Apple has gone all-in on Face ID, so it’s a moot point really. In a few years, we will all wonder why we ever put up with fingerprint sensors. That’s tech for you.
I still have my reservations about face id. Touch ID embedded in the screen would currently be my choice but that may change. In a few years we may be able to telepathically tell our phones to unlock lol.
You never know where technology will lead us and what the future holds. Three years ago when iPhone 6s launched, no one likely even was even thinking about Face ID being in existence, and now here we are.
Face ID is great in many areas. There are advantages to Touch ID such as with lock screen notifications, apple pay (find it easier for some reason using face ID), has led to better gesture swipes and more. On the downside, Face ID is not as fast as Touch ID to unlock the phone as I find there is a slight difference in unlock speed. Also, slightly inconvenient when wanting to view the phone at difficult angles which do not capture your face (e.g. laying in bed on your side) and it will not unlock if the phone sensors are upside down. Would like to see Touch ID or Face ID be on the phone to give you different ways to automatically login dependant upon how and where you use your iPhone. Face ID technology is fantastic though when I recall how we used to login to smartphones 10 years or more ago. With most phones, there were no touch screens and or login passwords features.
Respectfully, not a chance (at least in my opinion). Right or wrong, Apple is ridiculously stubborn about tech adoption and tech abandonment. They had to have looked at that and given it a thumbs-down, and Apple just doesn't make u-turns on decisions like that.
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Implants. Seriously. Either as the security device (one device unlocks your phone, your Mac, your vehicle, maybe your house, your office security device, etc.). Possibly the phone itself will be an implant.
I seriously doubt either will be completely gone next year
Whether Apple will incorporate a screen touch ID along with face ID or not remains to be seen
And YouTube ...
And Netflix...
And DJI drone software...
And... (I can go on and on)