[mikepurvis]

I went 8 -> 13 mini recently and I strongly preferred Touch ID also. It doesn’t require light, the right angle, or a button press to confirm the intentionality of actions like a purchase.

But yeah overall it’s bonkers how similar the two devices are for purportedly between four generations apart.

[sgjohnson]

> It doesn’t require light

neither does face ID

[mikepurvis]

Hmm okay. I’ve never been able to make it work while lying in bed; I end up just tapping in my pin rather than fuss with getting it to go through.

[sgustard]

Main issue for me in bed is failure to identify face smooshed into pillow. Raise head and unlock fine, even in full dark. Still requires neck muscle actuation that wasn't required with touch id.

[payalnik]

I have the same problem. Recently realized it’s because I don’t wear glasses in bed and thus the phone is too close to my face for faceid to work

[scarface_74]

It works in pitch dark.

[hellweaver666]

but it fails completely when you have a little bit of rain on your glasses :)

[joshstrange]

Depending on where you sit on the conscience/security sliding scale you might want to considering turning off “Require attention”. That solves 90% of glasses/sunglasses related issues.

[kergonath]

I do it all the time, fwiw, but my girlfriend cannot get it to work reliably. So your mileage might vary, but in my experience ambient light does not matter.

[jurmous]

For me it is because I don’t wear lenses and learned to move the phone a bit further away during the scan to make it eorl in bed. It works every time

[pratibha_simone]

Trueeee, when I bury half of my head in pillow.

[hanche]

No, but for me it often fails when outside in bright sunlight, especially if the sun is low in the sky, as it often is in my latitude. Perhaps it might work better if I try training it on my squinting face.

[lloeki]

Sort of the same experience in some specific lighting conditions.

What I found out though is that it's because in such lighting conditions I don't blink, compounded by the fact that if it doesn't unlock I unconsciously keep on not blinking to... see it hopefully unlock! So when this happens I consciously blink and it unlocks immediately, which is kind of cognitively dissonant.

Unknown if that would apply to your situation, YMMV but I thought I'd throw this one out.

There's also a kind of annoying recurring situation where I want to look at stuff on the lock screen but don't want to actually unlock...

I do wish they'd have reintroduced Touch ID in the camera control button sensor (or just in the power button, as for the iPad Air) but I guess cases would cause a problem.

[ricardobayes]

To me the best iPhone was the iPhone 7, with TouchID but no physical button. If I wanted, there was a completely silent mode that didn't have that "clunk" when you press that button.

[the_other]

I preferred the physical button. I hate the feel of "fake" clicks.

I used to think I wanted FaceID over TouchID, because TouchID would regularly fail to recognise my thumb if I'd recently washed my hands, or was a little dehydrated. Anything that affected my skin tension.

In practice, FaceID fails way more often, and also "resets" (the phone decides it wants a passcode before it'll trust my face again) multiple times a day. TouchID almost never did that.

[qubitcoder]

You can disable "Require Attention for Face ID" under Settings > Face ID & Passcode. That makes Face ID far more reliable and consistent in my experience (assuming you're okay with the reduced security tradeoff).

If you have an Apple Watch, you can also configure it to unlock your phone automatically when an obstruction prevents Face ID from recognizing your face.

I'd never go back to Touch ID. Face ID works in the dark, at pretty much any angle, and requires zero interaction.

[the_other]

> You can disable "Require Attention for Face ID" under Settings > Face ID & Passcode. That makes Face ID far more reliable and consistent in my experience (assuming you're okay with the reduced security tradeoff).

I have had it in this mode for years. It's still very fragile and/or skittish regarding making me use my passcode. Intuitively, it feels like about 10-15% of logins require the code rather than my face.

> If you have an Apple Watch, you can also configure it to unlock your phone automatically when an obstruction prevents Face ID from recognizing your face.

That's a very expensive solution.

> Face ID works in the dark, at pretty much any angle, and requires zero interaction.

All of which apply to TouchID too.

[seec]

Yeah, my experience is very similar. Unlike the other replier I don't think there was much gained with FaceID in the end, especially with that stupid notch would made their remove useful information. Also considering the added cost and the even worse repairability than TouchID it's not a very good deal for the consumer.

Especially since it makes many operations a 2-step process when it was much smoother before; like for example Apple Pay where you find yourself looking at your phone like an idiot instead of doing it all in a single movement.

[the_other]

- sorry, replied to wrong comment...

[seviu]

When my girlfriend saw the new camera button, she thought Touch ID had been added to the new iPhone, just like on her iPad mini. She got super excited for a moment, and I felt bad having to tell her that the new button doesn’t have Touch ID.

I feel the same way. If there’s one feature I miss, it’s toichid.

On the other hand, my parents, who are older, find Face ID to be a lifesaver since their fingerprints have mostly worn out.

[cutthegrass2]

completely agree, this was peak iPhone. The killer feature was the Aluminium back, a superior material for the back of a phone case.

[systemtest]

The problem I have with Face ID is that with my phone in its holder in my car, it's too far away to scan my face. I need to lean forward.

[sersi]

I switched to Samsung partly because of the lack of Touch ID. Face ID was annoying, it didn't work well with masks (even with the special option turned on), it didn't work well in the morning when I'm lying in bed, it didn't work well when I was carrying my son in a carrier because the angle was wrong.

Touch ID was reliable for me.

[mikepurvis]

My memories of Android phones are bad enough that I can’t imagine actually switching back over this feature — there’s just way too much else I appreciate about the Apple ecosystem. But respect to you!

[sersi]

I'd say it's significantly better... I did a brief stint with android a long time ago but didn't like it, but now I've been using it for 3 yearsish and I actually get annoyed when I use my wife's iphone. There's a lot to like from F-Droid, the fact that the quick settings menu is better (just a recent example, you long press on the hotspot button you get sent to the settings showing you the hotspot password),...

[seec]

Yeah, I think the hardware has improved so much that now the more complexe software can now be much more useful. This is what Apple has missed in my opinion; the iPhone is no longer a no-nonsense, simple as it gets, with a strict selection of features (both hardware and software) to meet a palatable price point, device that it once was. But then in comparaison to modern Android it feels like at the same time it is too complicated but also missing a lot of options/features/freedom.

Apple is working hard to add all kinds of "missing" features and complexity all over the place, all while raising the price of the device as much as possible. But in the end, what kind of client will be satisfied with this approach but noy with an Android? Not a whole lot I believe.

[darthrupert]

They're the same generation though. Just adding to a number doesn't change that.