Face ID is a major downgrade from Touch ID regardless of the pandemic.
Touch ID (combined with a home button) is a lot faster. You can reach into your pocket or handbag, put the finger on the button and press it while you're taking it out. By the time your phone is out it's unlocked and on the home screen. I don't recall seeing people failing to unlock their phones while paying with Apple Pay before but now it's a reasonably common occurrence if they didn't "prime" it ahead of time.
You can also quickly unlock your phone if it's not directly aligned with your face without having to pick it up (let's say it's on a table or desk) or if you're letting another person handle it.
Face ID is also annoying in bed, when either your face is obstructed by pillows/blankets or if you're holding your phone too close to your face and need to hold it further away for a second, illuminating the whole room in the process.
Touch ID also makes the authentication action explicit. If you're handling someone else's phone, you can look at the lockscreen without attempting to authenticate by simply keeping away from the home button and using the power button to wake it up. With Face ID the simple fact of looking at the phone is an authentication attempt and you'd be consuming the limited amount of attempts the owner has before they have to fall back to a passcode.
I have to disagree. Both systems have advantages over the other, and of course with a mask on TouchID has a pretty big advantage right now. But:
- FaceID is way better when your fingers are not perfect: after washing hands, in the kitchen, when wearing gloves etc.
- FaceID is more secure (lower chance of a false positive)
- FaceID already starts working when you pick up the phone (you do not need to trigger it), so by the time I swipe up to unlock, it has already long since identified my face
- FaceID enabled you to hide the content of notifications and only show them when you look at the phone
> by the time I swipe up to unlock, it has already long since identified my face
With Touch ID and a home button I do not have to swipe up to unlock - in the accessibility settings there is a "rest finger to open" option which brings back the pre-iOS10 (or around that time) behavior where the lockscreen is dismissed as soon as your finger is recognized.
This means that before I even take out the phone out of my pocket it is already unlocked and is on the home screen ready to be used. You can even start opening apps purely through muscle memory while you're taking the phone out.
FaceID gave access to my phone to a malicious house guest of a guest (boyfriend of sister who was unreasonably convinced of my disapproving of him, self fulfilling in this case ) who unlocked my phone using my face while I slept and even managed to authorize expenditure on my wallet.
Odd, as this shouldn't be possible - Face ID checks your eyes are open and are looking at the screen before it unlocks (unless you disable Attention-Aware Unlock in Accessibility settings).
Presumably he would have pressed your finger on the TouchID too, or just cut your thumb off if he's willing to go the next step. Hard to hold the phone manufacturer at fault for a case like this, right?
One major downside of Touch ID that is niche but affects me personally is that if your fingerprints get damaged (e.g. by rock climbing, which I do regularly) then Touch ID will stop working for ~1 day while your fingers recover. For this reason I'm planning on getting a device with Face ID or a similar feature next time I buy a phone. The downsides of Face ID you mention are valid, though.
Add your two thumbs and two index fingers so that you can use any one of them depending on convenience or rare edge cases like rock climbing damage to one of them.
A lot faster? what are we talking about? 1/2 a second? faceID is great, you look at the phone and it unlocks, I much prefer it to touchid, I used to have to use my passcode far more often with touchID because It didn't get it quite right, or my fingers were wet, or using my other hand from an odd angle.
And, with winter, you know, gloves...
If memory serves me right, Western Australia , South Australia and Tasmania haven't had local community transmission in months. Queensland had a couple of small outbreaks but seems to have been contained very quickly.
The Pixel 3XL and others had it right - fingerprint sensor on the back (natural spot for your pointer finger), still allowing for the whole front of the device to be the screen.
I disagree, I prefer Face ID. They just both have pros and cons.
If you're wearing gloves, Touch ID doesnt work. If you're wearing a mask, Face ID doesnt work. If your finger is a bit wet and/or wrinkly, Touch ID doesnt work. If your face is at a very off angle Face ID won't work.
Face ID worked pretty well for me (before mask time) and for me it had less tradeoffs. I prefer it.
> Touch ID (combined with a home button) is a lot faster. You can reach into your pocket or handbag, put the finger on the button and press it while you're taking it out. By the time your phone is out it's unlocked and on the home screen. I don't recall seeing people failing to unlock their phones while paying with Apple Pay before but now it's a reasonably common occurrence if they didn't "prime" it ahead of time.
I was excited when I discovered this, but I now consider this “feature” to be a security issue. I used to “prime” my Touch ID-equipped iPhones until I accidental authorized an in-app purchase because my thumb was pre-placed on the sensor.
Never again.
I had modified the Accessibility settings so that resting a finger on the sensor would unlock the device, and when reverting that setting I still ran into the same issue.
Yes I have used Face ID. I actually tried to force myself to like the new phone by "dual-wielding" both my iPhone 8 and a new iPhone XS for a couple weeks. I ended up sticking to my iPhone 8 and keeping the other one as a test device for iOS development.
By illuminating the room I meant illuminating from the light of the screen, not IR. When using it in bed I can keep a Touch ID device under a blanket as to not illuminate the rest of the room, but Face ID performs poorly in that case and I have to take the phone out completely so the light does leak. Granted, nowadays with dark mode and the new "dim screen during bedtime/do not disturb" it is a bit less of an issue but those weren't a thing when I used it and a light lockscreen wallpaper is still a significant amount of light for a pitch-black bedroom even on minimal brightness.
Touch ID (combined with a home button) is a lot faster. You can reach into your pocket or handbag, put the finger on the button and press it while you're taking it out. By the time your phone is out it's unlocked and on the home screen. I don't recall seeing people failing to unlock their phones while paying with Apple Pay before but now it's a reasonably common occurrence if they didn't "prime" it ahead of time.
You can also quickly unlock your phone if it's not directly aligned with your face without having to pick it up (let's say it's on a table or desk) or if you're letting another person handle it.
Face ID is also annoying in bed, when either your face is obstructed by pillows/blankets or if you're holding your phone too close to your face and need to hold it further away for a second, illuminating the whole room in the process.
Touch ID also makes the authentication action explicit. If you're handling someone else's phone, you can look at the lockscreen without attempting to authenticate by simply keeping away from the home button and using the power button to wake it up. With Face ID the simple fact of looking at the phone is an authentication attempt and you'd be consuming the limited amount of attempts the owner has before they have to fall back to a passcode.