[chris_7]

I unlock my phone in my pocket with Touch ID all the time - ready to go and on the home screen by the time I've flipped it around in my hand. Feels like a straight downgrade in usability.

also, some engineer at apple had to continuously grow a beard to test this

[aecorredor]

Ok, the guy demoing the iPhone X just had to switch to the backup phone because the Face ID on the first one didn't work quite smoothly.

[empath75]

actually, the phone had been rebooted, so he needed to unlock with a pin to activate it.

[vernie]

Actually, the message ("Your passcode is required to enable Face ID") was identical to the message when too many failed Touch ID attempts are made, not when a phone is rebooted ("Touch ID requires your passcode when iPhone restarts").

[aecorredor]

Still, at least I didn't notice, and probably the average user didn't either, which makes it just look as a major blooper. I loved the phone though.

[mcondit]

at least he knew the password and wasn't relying on the face recog to get into the phone, that could have been rough

[wlesieutre]

IIRC he didn't use the passcode, they switched over to a backup phone.

For presentations like these you always have multiple devices standing by, ready to flip over to at a moment's notice.

[ledak]

I'm pretty sure the backup phone had an imitation of Face ID unlocking.

[bhnmmhmd]

So you can't unlock your phone after coming from a plastic surgery?

I always thought chances of finding facial-doppelgangers are higher than fingerprint ones. Is that really wrong?

[developer2]

You always have the password as backup to unlock. If your appearance were to suddenly change remarkably, such as via plastic surgery or a horrific accident, you would set your new face after unlocking with the password.

Based on their phrasing, I'm assuming the "adaptive" aspect means that slow changes, such as gaining or losing weight, will progressively train the existing face - without it ever failing to recognize you because you passed some weight threshold. Same would go for growing a mustache or beard. As to whether you can shave off a 5-year beard and have it still recognize you without manual intervention, that would depend on how much the algorithm cares about your chin and lip regions vs. the rest of your face. Based on the demo, the hair on top of your head is 100% ignored.

[mikeash]

Apple claims that the odds of a random person's finger unlocking your iPhone with Touch ID is 1 in 50,000, and the odds of a random person's face unlocking Face ID is 1 in 1,000,000.

[kurthr]

That's interesting. I would think that identical twins would be very hard to distinguish... and those certainly have an almost 1:350 odds. Of course you're likely to know them, but still I'm not sure banks would be happy with that for FIDO.

[suninwinter]

They did say to not enable Face ID if you have an "evil" twin, which is pretty jokey, but probably 100% true.

[threeseed]

A twin could walk into any bank with their sibling's passport and do anything they wanted.

Banks are all about risk management not necessarily avoiding and and all risks.

[esolyt]

But a twin wouldn't be able to unlock my iPhone 7 with their finerprint.

[mikeash]

I think the number is if you choose another human at random, how likely is it that they'll be able to unlock your phone. Having a twin doesn't change that number much, since they're only one person out of 7+ billion. Of course, your threat model may be different from "pick a random human from anywhere on the planet."

[hanspeter]

> I would think that identical twins would be very hard to distinguish

Ask their mom. (Hint: They're not.)

[lozenge]

If you want to teach Face ID to reject masks, you need to make some masks. Similarly, if it needs to be taught to reject a twin, you need dozens of twins. And if it starts labelling people incorrectly as their twins, is it worth it?

Perhaps they can sidestep this by offering a specific twin learning feature.

[kagamine]

The twin's mother is inside the phone telling it what to do? Or the person you replied to is talking about technology finding it difficult to distinguish, and not a close family member?

[jandrese]

I wonder what the odds are of someone unlocking your phone with a picture of your face? I've heard lots of biometrics companies say that their system is immune to such simple hacks in the past, only to immediately fall to such simple hacks in testing.

[conception]

I believe it uses an IR camera, or similar tech, defeat that, sensing depth. Kinect style. A photo won't defeat it.

[pls2halp]

This time they’ve got an infrared sensore, as well as two cameras with different focal lengths, so they should be fine.

[DonHopkins]

At least he didn't have to shave his beard off.

[TheAnimus]

I had this feature on my 950 (Windows Phone). It was poor.

Slower and more error prone. Environmental changes such as extreme lighting (being outside) or wearing sunglasses stopped it from working.

Windows Hello and compatible webcams work really well in a stable desktop environment mind. I've just rolled them out across my firm.

[mrtksn]

No, you didn't have Face ID on your 950, you had whatever you had.

It's Apple's speciality to take good ideas that were never implemented properly and do it properly.

[andrepd]

Oh, you didn't have this Apple (TM) brand name feature, you just had the feature. I guess that makes it... better?

[philjohn]

It's the Apple modus-operandi of late, take an existing technology and improve it to the point where the friction is non existent.

Sure, many devices had fingerprint scanners before Touch ID, but the Apple implementation was pretty damn impressive compared to what came before.

Still, I can't help but feel that Face ID is a fudge they resorted to because they couldn't get Touch ID working through the screen reliably.

[soperj]

Like Apple Maps?

[MBCook]

Would you say that Google never implemented maps correctly?

If not then what the GP said doesn't apply.

Of course we could talk about the fact that Google was demanding all sorts of user data from Apple and wanted the ability to display ads on top of the maps… But people never talk about that. And Apple replace the head of the division that messed it up.

Just Apple is mean.

[wutwutwutwut]

Is Apple maps better now? Friends of mine using iphone seems to use Google maps.

[TurkTurkleton]

The corollary to "tak[ing] good ideas that were never implemented properly and do it properly", clearly, is taking good ideas that were implemented properly and completely fucking them up.

[threeseed]

Well Scott Forstall was fired for among other things Apple Maps.

And that said they have made decent improvements over the years.

[hota_mazi]

And also to take good ideas and never implement them because somebody already did it before them.

Even if that idea was good.

[zherbert]

Come on, your 950 didn't make a 3d dot-map of your face. This is very different.

[TheAnimus]

Yes it did an infra-red dot map of the face.

https://www.windowscentral.com/how-iris-scanner-lumia-950-an...

Amazing, -4 for mentioning this isn't a new feature. This is exactly how the kinect works, how windows hello enabled webcams work.

[jads]

It didn't have face detection at all, it had an iris scanner. Where in that article does it say infra-red dot map of a face?

From https://www.petri.com/windows-10-tip-using-the-lumia-950-wit...:

>Let’s be clear about how Windows Hello works on the Lumia 950. It doesn’t use facial recognition, but instead relies on the front camera and a nearfield IR diode so that the camera can clearly see your iris. When you enable Windows Hello for the first time, your iris is scanned and a cryptographic hash is generated and stored securely on the phone. When you attempt to unlock the device using Windows Hello, a new hash is generated and compared with the original, and if the two match, access is granted.

>Facial recognition on the other hand, as used in some new notebooks designed for Windows 10 and Intel’s RealSense F200 camera, uses three different methods to recognize your face: infrared, a standard camera, and a 3D camera. This technology requires more space inside the device and as such isn’t suitable for use in phones, but unlike iris scanning works at a distance.

You didn't get downvoted for mentioning a feature already implemented elsewhere, you were downvoted by trying to claim a device did something it clearly didn't.

[zimpenfish]

That article doesn't say anything about an infrared dot map of the face - just that "the infrared camera is first used to light up your eyes".

Additionally, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_recognition says "Iris recognition uses video camera technology with subtle near infrared illumination to acquire images of the detail-rich, intricate structures of the iris which are visible externally" which doesn't involve any kind of infrared dot map.

[pertymcpert]

Do you not read your own sources?

[rmrfrmrf]

I'm simply shocked that Microsoft would go first-to-market with an inferior product.

[wlesieutre]

Samsung also has facial recognition on the S8. You can bypass it by printing out a photo of the owner's face. But I would expect Apple's implementation to be more secure and more reliable than previous poor implementations, otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.

[zeusk]

What a load of bull. A simple photo doesn't work, there was a lot more work involved in subduing the facial recognition on S8.

[wlesieutre]

Well, it happened:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/03/video-shows-galaxy-s...

Here's what Samsung has to say about the feature

>The Galaxy S8 provides various levels of biometric authentication, with the highest level of authentication from the iris scanner and fingerprint reader. In addition, the Galaxy S8 provides users with multiple options to unlock their phones through both biometric security options, and convenient options such as swipe and facial recognition. It is important to reiterate that facial recognition, while convenient, can only be used for opening your Galaxy S8 and currently cannot be used to authenticate access to Samsung Pay or Secure Folder.

Not exactly a vote of confidence from the manufacturer, is it?

[2muchcoffeeman]

This is not the first time Android has had face recognition to unlock phones. I remember the first time they tried, it was trivially easy to snap a picture of your colleague and open his phone.

[Joeri]

I alo had a lumia 950. It does not have face recognition, it has an iris scanner. An infrared light lights up your eyes and then the camera makes an IR picture where it analyzes your iris pattern. The reason it didn't work well is that your eyes had to be open (no squinting, like in bright light), close enough to capture a precise image and in exactly the right spot for the zoomed in camera. I eventually learned a gesture that unlocked it semi-reliably, but it was basically holding the phone right up to my face in the exact right spot.

Now that I see how apple is doing face id I think it will work more reliably ... eventually. I doubt they'll get it right on the first try because this is the kind of feature that has to bake in the real world (like apple maps). Still, they may surprise us like they did with the equally hard touch id feature.

[dan1234]

I think speed of the facial recognition will make or break this. If it takes less than 500ms of me staring at it to unlock it could feel fluid enough. Any longer and it'll be annoying every time.

[davrosthedalek]

500ms is a LOOONG time. That's about how long my S8 needs, and I always question whether it works this time. 100ms or so would be great.

[dan1234]

Looked like it was reasonably quick in the demo.

[kfriede]

I may be wrong, but I remember reading something that most humans can't notice any lag below 200ms.

[s_kilk]

200ms is five frames/changes per second, and is definitely very noticeable. You may be thinking of a figure closer to about 12ms or so, which is the approximate threshold of perception for audio lag.

[grrowl]

iPhone X's front camera shoots at 60fps

[aetherson]

You can notice sub-200ms lag, but for when you aren't specifically watching for lag or firing a series of rapid events one-after-another, sub-200ms seems to be roughly the point where it "feels instantaneous."

[Splines]

In my experience a little under 100ms "feels" instantaneous.

[chris_7]

Definitely noticeable in gaming, 200ms is unplayable.

[vesrah]

Depends on how the game is tuned to handle it. Somehow we all played Quake / UT back in the day with that kind of ping.

[wlesieutre]

FaceID with lag compensation! As soon as it sees a face it starts to unlock based on a fast prediction, then if the authoritative secure side of the chip says "No, authentication actually failed" it rolls back the clock and relocks itself!

[rootlocus]

200ms can refer to network latency, input latency, frame render time, etc.

[coolsunglasses]

That's absolutely not true. I can tell the difference between 60 hz (16ms) and my 144 hz monitor. I can tell when my 144 hz monitor is accidentally running at a lower refresh rate, including 120, 100, 75, and 60.

200 ms is like a full react/response time for a human to take action in response to input, our actual sense of time is much finer than what our nervous system can make our muscles do.

[TylerE]

That's not lag though, that's refresh rate.

The question is could you tell the difference between your 144hz monitor and your 144hz monitor with the signal delayed 100ms.

[davrosthedalek]

Good monitor reviews include a test of the delay. 3 frames delay (<100 ms at 60hz) is absolutely atrocious and easily detected by players in games.

But of course, that's not the problem. It's ok that the phone doesn't unlock with out me noticing the delay. It just can't be so long that I start doubting whether it works.

[tjoff]

Yes. You'd feel quite drunk even controlling the mouse pointer with 100ms lag. This was/is actually a problem with some LCDs (VA in particular) that cached a frame or two in order to "anticipate" future changes so that they could adjust the voltage and make the image transition faster.

This overdrive is probably also the cause of burn-in-effects that seems to be especially common in VA panels.

[chris_7]

I think almost everyone playing games could.

[chris_7]

Is that because of the faster refresh rate, or because none of those divide evenly into 144 and thus you're getting weird frame stretching?

Curious as I just got back into gaming after several years and everyone seems to love 144fps now, wondering if I should upgrade. I have a 1080Ti, so I could presumably render that

[TylerE]

G-sync my dude. No frame stretching/sync tears.

[heyheyhey]

Agreed. If it's fast enough to unlock by the time my face is facing the iPhone, then I'm not losing any productivity there.

e: But watching the keynote, it's definitely doesn't seem that fast...

[ehsankia]

I disagree.

First off, as the person above said, you can start the unlocking process long before it's even facing with with touch-id, as you're taking it out of your pocket. With this, this "timer" starts only when it's fully out and facing you.

Next up, in this, it has to be facing you perfectly. You can't unlock it sneakily under the table, you can't do it while someone else is looking at your phone, etc.

Lastly, you still need to manually swipe to actually open the phone, so it's not like you're not using your finger either. If at least you could unlock it without using your hands that would be something.

At the end of the day, I still want to see properly reviews of what the actual successrate is too. It's not all about speed, if it fails 5% of the time, that's extremely annoying.

[Joeri]

That's probably why they make you swipe up. The gesture takes 500 ms at least, and it only has to unlock by the end of it.

[balls187]

it looked pretty slow on the demo. In the order of 1500ms.

TouchID is much faster.

[craigyk]

The unlock itself actually looked pretty fast... it just seemed a bit awkward that it had to be paired with a swipe to unlock.

[chris_7]

That matches what they did to touch ID in iOS 10: unlocking no longer actually took you to the home screen, just left you on the lock screen with your phone unlocked for... some... reason. There is a setting to change it, maybe there will be one for this as well.

[MBCook]

One of the reasons was that on newer phones (the 6S and the 7) Touch ID was so fast that it was hard to even see the lock screen. If you use the home button to wake up the phone then you would be authenticated and the screen would go away before you had a chance to see anything.

Their solution was to split it into two different steps.

You have the same issue with Face ID. If the "lock screen" went away as soon as you look at your phone you could never actually look at the notifications there.

Clearly they had to do something. Does this work well? I guess we'll find out when the reviews come out.

[rb666]

No, the issue is different. With FaceID, if there was no swipe, your phone would unlock all the time for no reason at all. For example while driving, or while having it flat on your desk and hovering near it, and so on.

I am very skeptical about FaceID. I actually love TouchID, can hardly imagine anything better, but Apple has surprised us before.

[thefalcon]

Oh yeah, I forgot that I had to change that setting. I definitely hope it's the same with Face ID - I don't use home screen notifications for anything.

[agumonkey]

True, it's three things:

- attention - faceid - swipe

And no cue to know if faceid worked before swiping. I couldn't see cues (maybe I missed them).

[nixy]

Except for that large padlock icon that shows the unlocked state when Face ID has identified you?

[agumonkey]

Aight, I failed, but it's really not how I like such information conveyed.

[eyesee]

A padlock icon in the corner unlocks when Face ID has authenticated.

[robotresearcher]

top center of the lock screen

[rmrfrmrf]

TouchID always takes a "slightly-perceptible" amount of time to work, so any improvement over that would be fine with me.

[agumonkey]

What about unlocking without looking at it ?

[c0ndu17]

I'm guessing you can tap on the padlock to enter your passcode.

[agumonkey]

that requires paying attention (and probably looking at it, even if you know the location, a screen is too flat), unlike the home button.

[robotresearcher]

gone away.

[PeppermintGrade]

Especially if you have several banking or investment related apps that use touch-id.

[WillKirkby]

For people using Apple Pay on the Oyster network in London, the speed of face recognition is absolutely gonna make or break this.

[selectodude]

Just auth before you get to the turnstile.

[tomcart]

It's having to look away from the primary activity of getting through the barrier that is the problem. Not sure how this will go down at 8am at Waterloo.

[sbuk]

No different from now. Plenty of people have eyes down watching videos or reading while walking towards the barriers on both sides. Annoys the bejeezus out of me every single day.

[empath75]

you have to auth again when you use apple pay.

[jon889]

No you can pre auth. If you authing at the gate, then youre extremely annoying..

[andrewingram]

It's part of why I think it should be considered a breach of social etiquette to use your phone to pay on public transport.

[test1235]

Like the people who wait till they're at the gate before delving into their bottomless-bag-of-carrying for their oyster

[LeoPanthera]

This is incorrect. You can preauth even with the current touch id models.

[yardstick]

Apologies but what do you need to do to preauth? Is this just the quick-double-pressing to open the Applet Pay wallet in advance? Do you still have to put your finger on it when making the actual payment?

[snowwolf]

Double press to bring up the wallet, then leave your finger on until the fingerprint changes to a phone with the message "Hold Near Reader to Pay". Then you don't need to leave your finger on when making the payment. Handy when you have to reach over a counter to "Tap" or need the payment to go through quickly (going through a payment barrier such as on the London underground). I assume FaceID will work the same.

[bhnmmhmd]

More and more, these devices are getting less usable by non-human beings. First the Touch ID and now Face ID...

So much speciesism.

[mort96]

I mean, I know you're joking, but it's not really the case. Before Touch ID, you had to either leave your phone always unlocked, or have a pass code/word. Those options are still available, there's just two additional ways now with Touch/Face ID, so they haven't gotten less usable for non-humans, just more usable for humans.

[intoverflow2]

Why add Touch ID to the laptop range which already had cameras when you're going to remove it from your next phone.

Could have just made the laptop camera up to scratch for this like Surface books are.

I feel we're being sold a compromise and until they failed to get a Touch ID sensor below that screen this was plan B.

[jads]

You should look at the specs and how FaceID works. It's so much more than just a camera.

The iPhone X is currently the only device to support face detection. All other iPads, iPhones, and MacBook Pro range use TouchID. It was years before it was ever added to the Mac, it'll likely be years before FaceID arrives as well.

[mgiannopoulos]

It's not just a camera trick. They have additional sensors to make this work.

[intoverflow2]

My comment obviously implied adding the sensors to make it work, Surface Laptops use IR as well as far as I know...

My point is more that why make a big deal about shipping dead tech to the laptop if this truly is what they consider the future and a better system.

[mgiannopoulos]

My guess is Apple isn't worried about being consistent. They will provide the best solution according to the tech available at the time and the other constraints of the product.

[Pigo]

I remember when I first had this feature available on my android phone, like 2 or 3 phones ago, and quickly turned it off. Fingerprint FTW

[velobro]

The system Apple is using is leaps and bounds better than whatever 2d sensor was in that old Android phone

[Pigo]

I'm sure it is, just as the one of my new Android is, but it wasn't about the speed or quality of the feature. I just didn't like it.

[tomcart]

If this slows people down going through barriers on the tube there will be barely (but just) contained rage across London

[djrogers]

After spending a week in London this spring, my (already high) appreciation of my Apple Watch went way up. Paying for my tube rides using my watch - even through sleeves and jackets - was really like magic. Don't think I could live there without one...

[viraptor]

It's funny how the acceptable level of comfort changes. Having an oyster card in your pocket wasn't a huge issue before. It's slightly less convenient, but not really life changing.

[chris_7]

I wonder if it works with scarves and hats covering everything but your eyes. It seems like an obvious oversight, but it's a Californian company that launched a maps app without any transit support...

[tomcart]

It's not just the accuracy, but the context switch. Apple Pay only works because you don't need to look at your phone to make it work.

[lando2319]

their website shows people with cold weather gear

https://www.apple.com/iphone-x/

[chris_7]

A scarf that's barely covering the bottom of the guy's face? They don't know true winter. (or, like, Muslims)

[foldr]

It's a tiny minority of Muslim women who cover their faces, just for the record. (I assume a head scarf wouldn't interfere.)

[bobthedino]

I'm curious: can you suggest a source for this statistic?

[bdibs]

The keynote did say it works with hats, scarves, and glasses. It also works with face changes like growing out a beard.

[mort96]

How about a big helmet? I imagine snowboarders/alpine skiers/motorcyclist will have to take off the helmet to unlock. As someone who goes snowboarding in the winter, it sounds really annoying to not only have to remove a glove, but also the helmet, to unlock the phone (or unlock with a passcode, which is still a downgrade from using the fingerprint).

[s_kilk]

It's starting to sound a lot like:

    if (true) {
      unlock_phone();
    }

[calsy]

Yet if your fingers have any moisture on them it fails to work. Nothings perfect.

[jghn]

I can barely get the damn thing to work reliably when I'm watching carefully where my thumb goes. I salute you.

[ashark]

Yeah, TouchID only gets me in like 50% of the time, usually with 2-3 attempts. And yes, I've re-done the prints a couple times.

All these people posting about consistently unlocking it without looking seem like they're from a different universe.

[rjeli]

The 7 touchid is much, much better than previous versions. Near instant

[jghn]

It's better, but it still sucks for me.

My 6 worked so infrequently that i stopped bothering. At least with my 7 it works about half the time on the first attempt or two. I've put my prints in many times, I've even recorded my thumb from all sorts of angles as multiple fingers. Still no joy.

[Tempest1981]

I know people with very dry hands who have this problem. Maybe due to cracked skin?

Wet hands also cause problems, but wet beyond sweaty.

[djf1]

Blisters are another deal breaker. As a new golfer I've been feeling this. I imagine people who work with their hands all day (e.g. construction) may have a similar issue.

[javabean22]

For me this happens ONLY when my fingers are wet or oily. Otherwise it works 100% of the time.

[blt]

It works pretty well on my oneplus 3t, so it's not impossible to get right.

[usaphp]

But then you have to adjust your grip, at least for me when I unlock my iphone I am using a different grip then when I try to click an icon on a homescreen, so if I would use face ID - it will save me some time for adjusting grip, at least that's what I imagine, of course nobody have tries face ID yet.

[chris_7]

So what I'm talking about is: I place my thumb on the home button and three fingers on the back of the phone, while grabbing it in my pocket. The fingers are initially pointed down, in the same direction of the phone. As I drag it out of my pocket, I click the home button and flip the phone around, so now my fingers are horizontal across the phone (standard phone-holding position basically). It's almost always unlocked by the time I can see anything on the screen.

This requires you to always orient the screen "inwards" (towards your leg).

[camone]

I don't understand why having the fingerprint sensor in the back of the phone (Nexus, Pixel and some other android devices) never took off that much. Ever since I got it on my Nexus 5x I absolutely loved it (Pixel now, same thing). It's incredibly intuitive, works both right and left handed, doesn't take up screen space, and they've just added a "scrolling" feature to open your notifications by swiping it. Seems like a no-brainer, I can't see any fault in it, and yet very few phones have it.

[MicroBerto]

Yeah but this face thing will work fantastically while you are in handcuffs and the cop holds it up to you.

[eosophos]

If you're already in handcuffs, can't they just as easily get your fingerprint?

[jads]

FaceID won't work if you're not looking directly at it. They can't force your eyes to look at it.

[philjohn]

Unless you close your eyes, or have remembered to hit the power button five times before they get the phone off you.

[jdc0589]

Im on a Nexus 5x, but I do the same thing, and had the same thought when I saw this in the keynote. I have my phone unlocked before I'm looking at it probably ~80% of the time.

[xster]

How do you know the guy didn't just shave his beard? :)

[paul7986]

Indeed especially when driving that millions of us shouldn't be doing but do anyway. Touch ID made it so easy to unlock ... can't imagine Face ID being a better in this scenario.

[trurl]

TouchID is great, but if I've been sweating or have some moisture on my hands for another reason (say I'm cooking and want to check the recipe) it fails horribly.

[chris_7]

At one point (iOS 10?) iOS's quickness in falling back to the passcode prompt regressed greatly.

In the cooking use case you ought to be able to say "hey Siri, keep my phone unlocked", but she'd probably just search for that on Bing.

[adiabatty]

I usually say "hey Siri, open auto-lock settings" as I take my iPad into the kitchen.

[usaphp]

But the reason you unlock it is to look at the information on your phone, so it's not like you are using touch id without looking at your phone after that, no?

[grego]

I keep "loaning" my finger to family members all the time, when I'm driving, watching TV, and they want to borrow my phone. Not really sure Apple thought through this from every angle...

[MBCook]

They could just hold the phone up and you could look over for a fraction of a second. No different than if you were talking to them.

[cbhl]

Oh boy, that's going to be awful fun for parents. Let the kid play with a game; they call your name while pointing the forward camera at you and you've just Face ID'ed some in-app purchase.

[MBCook]

That's an interesting corner case. My phone has a setting that lets me turn off touch ID for App Store purchases (so I would have to use my passcode) so I guess you'd just have to use that if your kid kept tricking you and you couldn't stop them.

[adiabatty]

Then you get the bill in the mail a couple days later and then ground your kid.

[rmrfrmrf]

It looks like they made a point in one of their promo ads that it also works at an angle and with weird lighting/obstructions (the video of the swimmer looking down at her phone that was flat against the edge of the pool).

[Shinchy]

This happens often to me when I used my phone as a sat nav, the phone was attached to the dash but would sometimes go to sleep if the battery went to 20%. I'd open it up again by just tapping the home.

[veidr]

I'm concerned that Face ID will suck more than Touch ID, too.

I do the pocket-unlock you describe often. At the same time, Touch ID has its own limitations. For instance, it doesn't work if you try to unlock after recently holding a cold beer (or have even slightly damp hands for any other reason).

[Osmium]

> Feels like a straight downgrade in usability.

You know, it really depends how fast it is. You need attentiveness to use your phone, so requiring attentiveness to unlock it doesn't seem unreasonable, provided it happens in less time than it takes to move your thumb to the glass.

[jasonlotito]

> You need attentiveness to use your phone

No, this is not true. I can log in and activate functions of my phone right now without looking at it.

If I have to look at my phone, there is a problem. If the phone merely needs to see my face, maybe it's less of one. The iPhone is already slow enough I find myself waiting on it, I don't want it to be any slower.

[gshakir]

People can be having a 'bad face day' if the Face ID doesn't work fast enough.