Informally, I see a lot of people in the wild with Touch ID phones who still enter their passcode to unlock, perhaps out of some sort of paranoia about having their fingerprint scanned. Having your face scanned will go over even worse, I'd imagine.
Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me.
It's not the potential for having my fingerprint scanned that bothers me. It's our increasingly intrusive government's belief that what's mine is theirs. They can legally force me, in some circumstances, to provide a fingerprint to unlock my phone. As it stands currently, there is no legal way for them to compel me to give up my password, as that's protected by the self-incrimination clause of the Fourth Amendment.
This may be an undocumented reason why an iOS 11 beta allows five quick presses of the Power button to disable Touch ID. This could easily be applied to FID. Once TID is disabled, your passcode is needed to reenable it.
Totally coincidentally, those five quick presses also enable you to make an EMS call (911, 999, 111, etc). But in doing so, TID is disabled an either event.
Any thoughts on the alleged longer power button? Wouldn't surprise me if it doubled as a home button.
There was some speculation that perhaps Apple would embed Touch ID into the power/lock button, but no rumors or leaks have suggested that will be the case. Doubling as a home button would be problematic — how would you lock the device, or differentiate between locking and returning to the home screen?
A single side button can be designed to perform many different tasks, including equally important tasks like a home and lock/sleep. Think of a camera’s shutter button. 2 levels of pressure. Press to focus, press all the way to shoot. Translated to an iPhone: press to go Home (click!), press further in to sleep/awake (deeper click).
The fact that the side button has been consistently rumoured to be more prominent, reflects the new importance of this button. This larger side button could also include Touch ID if Apple decides that its removal impacts too many people i.e. those who wear masks/helmets/face protection for work or leisure and can’t use Face ID. My bet is on Touch ID being gone entirely and replaced by Face ID despite the limitations I mentioned. Touch ID doesn’t work with gloves and people have lived with that limitation just fine.
On a side note, it always strikes me how some people here can’t think outside of the box. I don’t mean this as an insult. It’s just mind blowing to me. Just because something can’t be done with today’s paradigm, doesn’t mean that that paradigm can’t be changed to solve a new problem. Just because a button is known to have 2 states — pressed or not pressed — it doesn’t mean that a different type of button with multiple states can’t be designed.
Hold your phone while using the thumb for swiping. Can you reach the power button (even if longer) where it is currently positioned? No.
Put the single side button lower where a finger can comfortably use it as home...great right?
Now switch hands.
Thinking outside the box is great but human hands behave a certain way which is why some things end up the way they are.
The current home button has multi-states. Do a light double tap and you end up lowering the screen with Reachabiity. Double click the home button and you get the app selector. Do a long press and get Siri. Do a short press and you go home. Single light tap is unused because of too many false positives.
The current power button also has multiple states. Short press = screen off. Long press = shutdown screen.
I dunno...all the so-called "pro" users in this thread seems unaware that all the single gesture options are already being used by the iOS UI as are most of the home button interactions.
In the home screen UI:
Down swipe gets you search. Up swipe gets you the control buttons Left swipe is navigation or the notification screen Right swipe is navigation
Plus apps will have their own swipe behaviors...so you can't just say "Oh, we'll just use double up swipe to go home" because any game that uses swipe for game play control will constantly have that swipe behavior.
Oh, I use face ID to unlock my Surface Book. I MUCH prefer the Touch ID on my MBP.
Correction: you have never used Face ID (Apple’s version). None of us has.
There were other applications of finger print unlocking before Touch ID. They were unreliable, slow and required swiping your finger slowly over the sensor. Totally unusable. Along came Touch ID and made it fast, accurate and intuitive — you just put your finger on the button you were already using to wake up your iPhone.
Apple has earned a reputation for waiting until they’ve perfected a technology so that they can release it, not first but right. Face ID will be unobtrusive, seamless and accurate and it’ll make everybody forget Touch ID.
So I don't care how "perfect" the FaceID implementation is because I can already tell from common unlocking use cases that my iPhone can't see my face. Put the front camera in selfie mode, lay it flat on a table. It can't see me at all. I unlock my phone in this position all the time (meetings, meals, whatever) where all I have and need is one (mostly clean) finger.
You're making a false assumption -- that the Face ID sensors are identical your phone's selfie camera. Bad assumption.
My assumption is based on the physical limitation of any front facing lens system and the maximum usable field of view even with multiple sensors.
world class 3D imaging technology 2 years ahead of the closest runner up
How do you know this?
Just stop.
If this is the best you can do, you shouldn't be writing about Apple.
We can disagree, but if you want to insult me, you won't last much longer here on the forums.
No one is insulting you. But you are annoying me. By maintaining the idea that Face ID somehow has to be inferior to Touch ID, despite never seeing the product, because of (rather unimaginative) reservations of your part. You can be indifferent until you’ve seen the product, or you can give Apple the benefit of the doubt they’ve earned.
I dont think it’s appropriate to take the angle you’ve maintained, especially with a wide audience. That is all.
I strongly disagree. I think it's responsible journalism to be skeptical and explore potential problems with alternative implementations. I don't mean being a FUD factory, but providing a realistic and honest examination of how a new feature or function may play out, including outcomes that aren't part of the positive spin provided by marketing materials. I realize that exploring potential downsides may be unpopular, especially on a site frequented by fans, but I think Neil did a good job of pointing out how likely/unlikely certain manifestations are, and separating what could happen from what he thinks will happen.
I often see or read about what seems like a great idea until someone points out a side-effect I didn't anticipate that makes me say, "Hm, I didn't think of that." That allows me to make better decisions. I may come to the conclusion that the intended purpose of the feature outweighs the liability of the side-effect, or I may choose to buy something else. The point is that it's still up to me to choose how I apply that information. Examining all possible outcomes, both positive and negative, is helpful.
And everyone knows that most of this is conjecture at this point, and may all ultimately be moot.
You really believe that?
Let me simplify things for you: IF Apple is replacing Touch ID with Face ID, then Face ID is as good or better than Touch ID in every way that matters. Period. Why? Fucking because, that's why! You think Apple is going to replace their utterly world-class Touch ID technology with something inferior on their flagship years-in-development iPhone? This is so far beyond common sense that it is irritating to see anyone pretending to not understand this simple concept.
I don't need to sit here and pretend to be skeptical with hypothetical problems and amateurish ideas of what 3D imaging/facial recognition is. Even calling it "facial recognition" is a misnomer and an attempt to demote it.
Yeah I dont really get this hand-wringing "concern" the same old players have about every new thing Apple does. It defies reason. I just have to remind myself these were the same people who dreamed up doomsday fringe cases for the upcoming Touch ID back in the day. Now they cling to it.
Or maybe we're just tired of the same sort of idiocy that insisted that Apple was about to release an Apple Plasma TV ten years ago because they had solved the problem of TVs and anything rumored about to be released by Apple must actually happen. People like Ireland were just as obnoxiously dismissive of others as you two and lo and behold, ten years later still no Apple branded HDTV.
Maybe FaceID is about to be released as the only biometric unlock method. Maybe it isn't. But you guys assuming that Apple has some magic sensor that provides 180 degrees FOV coverage where "if you can see the iPhone it can see you" are full of shit. I'm not doubting Apple at all. If they add facial recognition on the iPhone it'll work very well. It is pompous blowhards that believe Apple has super sekit magic technology that I doubt.
My bet is they will add FaceID capability to iOS when it's ready and that the TouchID on the iPhone 8 got moved to the longer power button.
Oh heck no, I just decided it would fun to waste time writing a bunch of stuff I don't believe.
Do I really believe WHAT? I made at least three distinct points. If you wanna refute one or more of them you're gonna have to be more specific.
Let me simplify things for you:
As much as I appreciate the effort you're put into being insultingly condescending, it really isn't necessary. I said that I disagree with you, not that I don't understand. That you don't seem to see the difference says something about your own opinion of your own opinion.
IF Apple is replacing Touch ID with Face ID, then Face ID is as good or better than Touch ID in every way that matters. Period. Why? Fucking because, that's why!
That argument is a classic example of begging the question. You're saying Apple won't get it wrong because Apple is incapable of making mistakes. That's a flawed argument right out of the gate.
Even if one accepted your premise, and I don't, it overlooks the much more likely scenario that Apple's priorities differ from those of certain users. The move to all universal connectors on MacBook Pros is a perfect example. Some people lauded the move as a giant leap forward, and feel that the long-term benefits outweigh any short-term inconvenience. But what if you're one of those people who doesn't appreciate having to apply a workaround every single time you want to connect a peripheral? If the benefits of USB-C don't apply to you, and/or if the loss of slots and ports you use everyday is a hassle, you're not going to be shouting from the rooftops about Apple's infallibility.
That's just one example of how any change may be perceived as an improvement or a mis-step, depending on a specific user's circumstances. There are no absolutes. Maybe Apple has decided that being able to unlock an obscured phone is something it's willing to give up in exchange for gaining faceplate space. Some people would consider that an improvement, others would say it's a step backwards. It is therefore impossible for Apple to be infallible, because different users have different priorities and no single change is going to please everybody. So yes, it's reasonable and responsible to at least look into ways in which a change may adversely affect some users.
Any thoughts on the alleged longer power button? Wouldn't surprise me if it doubled as a home button.
There was some speculation that perhaps Apple would embed Touch ID into the power/lock button, but no rumors or leaks have suggested that will be the case. Doubling as a home button would be problematic — how would you lock the device, or differentiate between locking and returning to the home screen?
A single side button can be designed to perform many different tasks, including equally important tasks like a home and lock/sleep. Think of a camera’s shutter button. 2 levels of pressure. Press to focus, press all the way to shoot. Translated to an iPhone: press to go Home (click!), press further in to sleep/awake (deeper click).
The fact that the side button has been consistently rumoured to be more prominent, reflects the new importance of this button. This larger side button could also include Touch ID if Apple decides that its removal impacts too many people i.e. those who wear masks/helmets/face protection for work or leisure and can’t use Face ID. My bet is on Touch ID being gone entirely and replaced by Face ID despite the limitations I mentioned. Touch ID doesn’t work with gloves and people have lived with that limitation just fine.
On a side note, it always strikes me how some people here can’t think outside of the box. I don’t mean this as an insult. It’s just mind blowing to me. Just because something can’t be done with today’s paradigm, doesn’t mean that that paradigm can’t be changed to solve a new problem. Just because a button is known to have 2 states — pressed or not pressed — it doesn’t mean that a different type of button with multiple states can’t be designed.
Hold your phone while using the thumb for swiping. Can you reach the power button (even if longer) where it is currently positioned? No.
Put the single side button lower where a finger can comfortably use it as home...great right?
Now switch hands.
Thinking outside the box is great but human hands behave a certain way which is why some things end up the way they are.
The current home button has multi-states. Do a light double tap and you end up lowering the screen with Reachabiity. Double click the home button and you get the app selector. Do a long press and get Siri. Do a short press and you go home. Single light tap is unused because of too many false positives.
The current power button also has multiple states. Short press = screen off. Long press = shutdown screen.
I dunno...all the so-called "pro" users in this thread seems unaware that all the single gesture options are already being used by the iOS UI as are most of the home button interactions.
In the home screen UI:
Down swipe gets you search. Up swipe gets you the control buttons Left swipe is navigation or the notification screen Right swipe is navigation
Plus apps will have their own swipe behaviors...so you can't just say "Oh, we'll just use double up swipe to go home" because any game that uses swipe for game play control will constantly have that swipe behavior.
Oh, I use face ID to unlock my Surface Book. I MUCH prefer the Touch ID on my MBP.
Correction: you have never used Face ID (Apple’s version). None of us has.
There were other applications of finger print unlocking before Touch ID. They were unreliable, slow and required swiping your finger slowly over the sensor. Totally unusable. Along came Touch ID and made it fast, accurate and intuitive — you just put your finger on the button you were already using to wake up your iPhone.
Apple has earned a reputation for waiting until they’ve perfected a technology so that they can release it, not first but right. Face ID will be unobtrusive, seamless and accurate and it’ll make everybody forget Touch ID.
If FaceID constrains us to distance & angle of face relative to the sensors then that might end up being a little obtrusive for some use cases.
I mention AR kit because it’s able to recognize objects at angles. If you have iOS 11 beta, check out document scanning in Notes. You can precisely and accurately scan a document on close to a flat plain. Somewhere close to 180 degrees. It really is mind blowing. And I’m doing this on an iPhone 6 Plus, a 3 year old phone. Imagine what can be done with cutting edge 3D sensors and lasers, built specifically to detect and scan faces. And you don’t need anywhere close to 180 degrees to scan a face while an iPhone is sitting on the desk nearby.
With Face ID, if you can see your phone, your phone can see you. There won’t be any raising your phone to your face to unlock it. If you’re near your phone, it’s unlocked. That simple.
Now, imagine how something like that can be far superior to Touch ID. Scanning your fingerprint works by request or by deliberate action. Face ID can check on you whenever is necessary to secure your phone to make sure you’re the one using it, not someone who walked off with it after you unlocked it with Touch ID. Whenever you’re using your phone, it’s unlocked. Whenever someone else is using it, it’s locked.
Scanning a flat document that is tilted at an extreme angle is not hard. It's called an "affine transformation", and it can be done without any 3D sensors at all.
A harder problem is associated with transforming or "warping", as it's sometimes called, an undulating surface (such as a face) that is turned at an arbitrary angle. 3D sensors are definitely necessary here, as are good models of your face to begin with. And I'm sure that Apple has solve both of these.
But neither of those things illustrate my concern. The problem I'm talking about here is the one where your face is not directly in the field of view of the sensors. Think about a case where the phone is lying nearly flat & level on an NFC sensor at a retail store, and you are standing such that your face is two feet away and 45 degrees off axis from the vertical sensor "bore site". The question I have is this: how broad is the transmit & receive field of the 3D sensor(s)? Are they looking isotropically from the face of the phone? Are they literally scanning almost half-hemisphere above and hunting for your face at any distance? There must be some limits.
In other words, I'm not necessarily believing your statement: "With Face ID, if you can see your phone, your phone can see you."
No mention of the value of TouchID to applePay though.
Because this isn't a thing. ApplePay has nothing to do with Touch ID. Apple's security mechanisms are why Apple Pay is acceptable to the industry. Touch ID is a convenience feature, that lets you skip entering a password. It has nothing to do with the overall security protocols in place. For this reason, Touch ID is interchangeable with any equally high quality convenience feature that Apple develops.
And within the last sentence lies the rub. The system developed needs to be equally convenient when used with ApplePay, and that may not turn out to be the case.
Do you use ApplePay at retail checkout counters? When you place the phone near the NFC system, the iPhone switches to ApplePay mode instantly, regardless of what app it was in or even if it was previously asleep. At that moment, the phone needs to confirm that YOU are the one holding it while it is still very near the NFC system so it can complete the confirmation of payment. The current mechanism, i.e. relying on TouchID, is perfectly convenient because your thumb is right there to do the trick.
Contrast that with any other system of ID confirmation, whether it be entering a PIN, scanning your face, or even scanning your retina (not that that is even in the cards right now, but just for the sake of argument). Given the position and angle that these readers are at relative to your face (often a couple of feet away and at an obtuse angle with respect to your face) I wonder how well the face scanning will work from that position. How broad of an angle in space will the 3D sensors cover (so your face is even in its view), how near does your face need to be (to give it enough "voxels on target"), and how well will it work if your face is not nearly perpendicular to the beam pattern (how complete is your stored 3-D "face model")? It's entirely possible that Apple will have to design in a few extra steps, such as either:
(1) after ApplePay is invoked, requiring you to tilt and/or lift your phone a bit to scan your face (or type in a PIN) and then place it back down again, which NFC systems may not even support, or...
(2) scan your face (or enter PIN) first mere seconds before placing the phone down on the NFC system. (Of course, this would require the iPhone to be awake and make you launch ApplePay prior to placing the phone.)
Note: a third option is that the user has to bend over to get his/her face near and directly over the phone while it is still near the reader. I think this will cause some consternation for many users. Maybe not for geeks such as me and many AI readers here, but I can imagine that a non-trivial fraction of users won't want to contort like this in public.
Just two seconds of thought on this and you realize that from a user experience perspective, the current TouchID implementation holds a lot of value for ApplePay. Any other "high quality convenience feature that Apple develops" to support this ID verification is going to have to be designed with these things in mind, and I (for one) am somewhat concerned that it won't be as good for this use case as TouchID is. Maybe this is a first-world problem, and maybe you will scoff at me for my concern over a few extra steps, but my observation is that Apple commonly designs for solving first-world problems. The original implementation of ApplePay with TouchID clearly indicates they worked hard to do just that. Here's hoping whatever they come up with regarding ApplePay and ID verification (non TouchID) is just as slick.
P.S. I have similar concerns with unlocking the phone any time it is laying on a level surface and my face is not directly above the phone. Yes, I sometimes do that to see what is onscreen (such as a score, stock price, or whatever page/app I left it on) without having to pick the device up.
Your entire post is based on the false assumption that Face ID won't work at the distance & angle of a retailer's POS terminal, despite rumors saying it will, in the fashion of the document scanning in iOS 11 which works at extreme angles. Which makes sense, considering POSTs are already facing you due to the presence of the keypad.
Solvable problems.
You are not understanding my objection. The angle that a document is scanned at refers to the pose that it is tilted at with respect to the camera. But the camera is aimed at the document.
In my use case, the camera is not aimed at me. How far off of the perpendicular can I be? No way that the phone is scanning the full hemisphere above it. There must be limits. We shall see.
Any thoughts on the alleged longer power button? Wouldn't surprise me if it doubled as a home button.
There was some speculation that perhaps Apple would embed Touch ID into the power/lock button, but no rumors or leaks have suggested that will be the case. Doubling as a home button would be problematic — how would you lock the device, or differentiate between locking and returning to the home screen?
A single side button can be designed to perform many different tasks, including equally important tasks like a home and lock/sleep. Think of a camera’s shutter button. 2 levels of pressure. Press to focus, press all the way to shoot. Translated to an iPhone: press to go Home (click!), press further in to sleep/awake (deeper click).
The fact that the side button has been consistently rumoured to be more prominent, reflects the new importance of this button. This larger side button could also include Touch ID if Apple decides that its removal impacts too many people i.e. those who wear masks/helmets/face protection for work or leisure and can’t use Face ID. My bet is on Touch ID being gone entirely and replaced by Face ID despite the limitations I mentioned. Touch ID doesn’t work with gloves and people have lived with that limitation just fine.
On a side note, it always strikes me how some people here can’t think outside of the box. I don’t mean this as an insult. It’s just mind blowing to me. Just because something can’t be done with today’s paradigm, doesn’t mean that that paradigm can’t be changed to solve a new problem. Just because a button is known to have 2 states — pressed or not pressed — it doesn’t mean that a different type of button with multiple states can’t be designed.
Hold your phone while using the thumb for swiping. Can you reach the power button (even if longer) where it is currently positioned? No.
Put the single side button lower where a finger can comfortably use it as home...great right?
Now switch hands.
Thinking outside the box is great but human hands behave a certain way which is why some things end up the way they are.
The current home button has multi-states. Do a light double tap and you end up lowering the screen with Reachabiity. Double click the home button and you get the app selector. Do a long press and get Siri. Do a short press and you go home. Single light tap is unused because of too many false positives.
The current power button also has multiple states. Short press = screen off. Long press = shutdown screen.
I dunno...all the so-called "pro" users in this thread seems unaware that all the single gesture options are already being used by the iOS UI as are most of the home button interactions.
In the home screen UI:
Down swipe gets you search. Up swipe gets you the control buttons Left swipe is navigation or the notification screen Right swipe is navigation
Plus apps will have their own swipe behaviors...so you can't just say "Oh, we'll just use double up swipe to go home" because any game that uses swipe for game play control will constantly have that swipe behavior.
Oh, I use face ID to unlock my Surface Book. I MUCH prefer the Touch ID on my MBP.
Correction: you have never used Face ID (Apple’s version). None of us has.
There were other applications of finger print unlocking before Touch ID. They were unreliable, slow and required swiping your finger slowly over the sensor. Totally unusable. Along came Touch ID and made it fast, accurate and intuitive — you just put your finger on the button you were already using to wake up your iPhone.
Apple has earned a reputation for waiting until they’ve perfected a technology so that they can release it, not first but right. Face ID will be unobtrusive, seamless and accurate and it’ll make everybody forget Touch ID.
So I don't care how "perfect" the FaceID implementation is because I can already tell from common unlocking use cases that my iPhone can't see my face. Put the front camera in selfie mode, lay it flat on a table. It can't see me at all. I unlock my phone in this position all the time (meetings, meals, whatever) where all I have and need is one (mostly clean) finger.
You're making a false assumption -- that the Face ID sensors are identical your phone's selfie camera. Bad assumption.
Identical or not, every electromagnetic sensor in this world has some limitations on its field of view. Apple's new ones for FaceID will too. The question is how does the field of view affect some of the use cases that TouchID excels at.
Please realize that considering questions like this is not the same as bashing Apple. I am a long-time Apple fan, customer, and shareholder, and I have 100% confidence that this will all work out OK. I may grouse a little bit about slight inconveniences that arise from some of Apple's choices, but it doesn't amount to much.
There is a chance that, come Sep 12th, Apple will show us an ApplePay solution similar to what they did with the AppleWatch. In other words, instead of placing your iPhone on the payment terminal, perhaps you will need to invoke the ApplePay screen somehow... just for one example, by double pressing (or long-pressing) the side button. Then you hold the phone such that it can see your face. FaceID verification occurs and the iPhone asks you to place it on the pay terminal (within a modest time limit). Payment accepted. The TouchID method was slicker, but not by much. So not a huge disappointment.
world class 3D imaging technology 2 years ahead of the closest runner up
How do you know this?
Just stop.
If this is the best you can do, you shouldn't be writing about Apple.
We can disagree, but if you want to insult me, you won't last much longer here on the forums.
No one is insulting you. But you are annoying me. By maintaining the idea that Face ID somehow has to be inferior to Touch ID, despite never seeing the product, because of (rather unimaginative) reservations of your part. You can be indifferent until you’ve seen the product, or you can give Apple the benefit of the doubt they’ve earned.
I dont think it’s appropriate to take the angle you’ve maintained, especially with a wide audience. That is all.
I strongly disagree. I think it's responsible journalism to be skeptical and explore potential problems with alternative implementations. I don't mean being a FUD factory, but providing a realistic and honest examination of how a new feature or function may play out, including outcomes that aren't part of the positive spin provided by marketing materials. I realize that exploring potential downsides may be unpopular, especially on a site frequented by fans, but I think Neil did a good job of pointing out how likely/unlikely certain manifestations are, and separating what could happen from what he thinks will happen.
I often see or read about what seems like a great idea until someone points out a side-effect I didn't anticipate that makes me say, "Hm, I didn't think of that." That allows me to make better decisions. I may come to the conclusion that the intended purpose of the feature outweighs the liability of the side-effect, or I may choose to buy something else. The point is that it's still up to me to choose how I apply that information. Examining all possible outcomes, both positive and negative, is helpful.
And everyone knows that most of this is conjecture at this point, and may all ultimately be moot.
IF Apple is replacing Touch ID with Face ID, then Face ID is as good or better than Touch ID in every way that matters. Period. Why? Fucking because, that's why! You think Apple is going to replace their utterly world-class Touch ID technology with something inferior on their flagship years-in-development iPhone? This is so far beyond common sense that it is irritating to see anyone pretending to not understand this simple concept.
I don't need to sit here and pretend to be skeptical with hypothetical problems and amateurish ideas of what 3D imaging/facial recognition is. Even calling it "facial recognition" is a misnomer and an attempt to demote it.
I think that one of Apple's nonnegotiable engineering objectives for this new iPhone was to maximize the fraction of the front face occupied by the display. There was to be no physical home button, period. As a consequence of that, as well as the fact that a fingerprint reader on the back is just plain stupid, Apple tried their darnedest to get the TouchID to work within the display. Having FaceID was an objective too, but I suspect Apple would have preferred to have both that & TouchID for some time. But TouchID in the display didn't work well enough, and ditching the home button was nonnegotiable. Ergo, TouchID had to go. And that was possible only because FaceID apparently meets whatever requirements Apple set for probability of detect & false alarm rates. That's all great, and I like it. They probably also considered the inevitable impact to certain use cases and did something (we shall see) to mitigate those to the extent they could. ApplePay may be one of those things that requires an extra step or two. We shall see how they handle that.
In other words, I could see how Apple's engineering trade-off logic may have come down to this: having a full screen display plus FaceID is more desirable than keeping the physical home button, moving the TouchID to the back, or shipping a TouchID in display that does not work well enough. This does not imply that (FaceID >= TouchID). It only implies that (Fullscreen + FaceID) > (Smaller Screen + Home Button with TouchID) and that FaceID is "good enough", not to mention probably "very cool". Actually, I think the latter operator should be >>, because I really think the left side of that inequality is going to absolutely rock.
I don't think you should let yourself get so annoyed by people having thoughtful discourse like this, and certainly not just "fucking because". Perhaps you should slow down and give your forum-mates a little more credit. Your initial response about the scanning of a flat document at a high angle couldn't be further from the point that at least two of us were making, and that was only because you were in a huge hurry to dismiss anything we said.
a) my wife doesn't use TouchID (mostly...) because it doesn't work for her. It works for some days, but then the process begins to become more erratic. Sometimes it'll catch her fingerprint, sometimes it won't. She can then re-learn her fingers and it'll work for some days... but she doesn't bother to do that every few days. So she just sticks to the passcode b) she still does swipe to unlock, even as it doesn't do anything... I told her many times it doesn't make sense, but on the other hand, as she doesn't unlock with her finger, things get strange anyway.
I think that one of Apple's nonnegotiable engineering objectives for this new iPhone was to maximize the fraction of the front face occupied by the display. There was to be no physical home button, period. As a consequence of that, as well as the fact that a fingerprint reader on the back is just plain stupid, Apple tried their darnedest to get the TouchID to work within the display. Having FaceID was an objective too, but I suspect Apple would have preferred to have both that & TouchID for some time. But TouchID in the display didn't work well enough, and ditching the home button was nonnegotiable. Ergo, TouchID had to go. And that was possible only because FaceID apparently meets whatever requirements Apple set for probability of detect & false alarm rates. That's all great, and I like it. They probably also considered the inevitable impact to certain use cases and did something (we shall see) to mitigate those to the extent they could. ApplePay may be one of those things that requires an extra step or two. We shall see how they handle that.
In other words, I could see how Apple's engineering trade-off logic may have come down to this: having a full screen display plus FaceID is more desirable than keeping the physical home button, moving the TouchID to the back, or shipping a TouchID in display that does not work well enough. This does not imply that (FaceID >= TouchID). It only implies that (Fullscreen + FaceID) > (Smaller Screen + Home Button with TouchID) and that FaceID is "good enough", not to mention probably "very cool". Actually, I think the latter operator should be >>, because I really think the left side of that inequality is going to absolutely rock.
I don't think you should let yourself get so annoyed by people having thoughtful discourse like this, and certainly not just "fucking because". Perhaps you should slow down and give your forum-mates a little more credit. Your initial response about the scanning of a flat document at a high angle couldn't be further from the point that at least two of us were making, and that was only because you were in a huge hurry to dismiss anything we said.
Or, more likely, TouchID is now in the much longer power button given that Apple was granted a patent so they could, you know, have bigger screens.
This article is correct. From here out this is a "Pro" model for advanced users. I'll enjoy it, but many types of users are not ready / not capable of handling this kind of UI.
There will be (other) iPhones with Home Buttons for a long, long time.
What an incredibly arrogant comment! So stupid or poor people have to settle for the 7S or 7S Plus? Unless your IQ and bank balance are of a certain class then you are denied the new design. Then you get to use the same 4 year old design
Any thoughts on the alleged longer power button? Wouldn't surprise me if it doubled as a home button.
There was some speculation that perhaps Apple would embed Touch ID into the power/lock button, but no rumors or leaks have suggested that will be the case. Doubling as a home button would be problematic — how would you lock the device, or differentiate between locking and returning to the home screen?
Now based on Roger's article - what's your latest thoughts?
Comments
This may be an undocumented reason why an iOS 11 beta allows five quick presses of the Power button to disable Touch ID. This could easily be applied to FID. Once TID is disabled, your passcode is needed to reenable it.
Totally coincidentally, those five quick presses also enable you to make an EMS call (911, 999, 111, etc). But in doing so, TID is disabled an either event.
Maybe FaceID is about to be released as the only biometric unlock method. Maybe it isn't. But you guys assuming that Apple has some magic sensor that provides 180 degrees FOV coverage where "if you can see the iPhone it can see you" are full of shit. I'm not doubting Apple at all. If they add facial recognition on the iPhone it'll work very well. It is pompous blowhards that believe Apple has super sekit magic technology that I doubt.
My bet is they will add FaceID capability to iOS when it's ready and that the TouchID on the iPhone 8 got moved to the longer power button.
Do I really believe WHAT? I made at least three distinct points. If you wanna refute one or more of them you're gonna have to be more specific.
As much as I appreciate the effort you're put into being insultingly condescending, it really isn't necessary. I said that I disagree with you, not that I don't understand. That you don't seem to see the difference says something about your own opinion of your own opinion.
That argument is a classic example of begging the question. You're saying Apple won't get it wrong because Apple is incapable of making mistakes. That's a flawed argument right out of the gate.
Even if one accepted your premise, and I don't, it overlooks the much more likely scenario that Apple's priorities differ from those of certain users. The move to all universal connectors on MacBook Pros is a perfect example. Some people lauded the move as a giant leap forward, and feel that the long-term benefits outweigh any short-term inconvenience. But what if you're one of those people who doesn't appreciate having to apply a workaround every single time you want to connect a peripheral? If the benefits of USB-C don't apply to you, and/or if the loss of slots and ports you use everyday is a hassle, you're not going to be shouting from the rooftops about Apple's infallibility.
That's just one example of how any change may be perceived as an improvement or a mis-step, depending on a specific user's circumstances. There are no absolutes. Maybe Apple has decided that being able to unlock an obscured phone is something it's willing to give up in exchange for gaining faceplate space. Some people would consider that an improvement, others would say it's a step backwards. It is therefore impossible for Apple to be infallible, because different users have different priorities and no single change is going to please everybody. So yes, it's reasonable and responsible to at least look into ways in which a change may adversely affect some users.
A harder problem is associated with transforming or "warping", as it's sometimes called, an undulating surface (such as a face) that is turned at an arbitrary angle. 3D sensors are definitely necessary here, as are good models of your face to begin with. And I'm sure that Apple has solve both of these.
But neither of those things illustrate my concern. The problem I'm talking about here is the one where your face is not directly in the field of view of the sensors. Think about a case where the phone is lying nearly flat & level on an NFC sensor at a retail store, and you are standing such that your face is two feet away and 45 degrees off axis from the vertical sensor "bore site". The question I have is this: how broad is the transmit & receive field of the 3D sensor(s)? Are they looking isotropically from the face of the phone? Are they literally scanning almost half-hemisphere above and hunting for your face at any distance? There must be some limits.
In other words, I'm not necessarily believing your statement: "With Face ID, if you can see your phone, your phone can see you."
In my use case, the camera is not aimed at me. How far off of the perpendicular can I be? No way that the phone is scanning the full hemisphere above it. There must be limits. We shall see.
Identical or not, every electromagnetic sensor in this world has some limitations on its field of view. Apple's new ones for FaceID will too. The question is how does the field of view affect some of the use cases that TouchID excels at.
Please realize that considering questions like this is not the same as bashing Apple. I am a long-time Apple fan, customer, and shareholder, and I have 100% confidence that this will all work out OK. I may grouse a little bit about slight inconveniences that arise from some of Apple's choices, but it doesn't amount to much.
There is a chance that, come Sep 12th, Apple will show us an ApplePay solution similar to what they did with the AppleWatch. In other words, instead of placing your iPhone on the payment terminal, perhaps you will need to invoke the ApplePay screen somehow... just for one example, by double pressing (or long-pressing) the side button. Then you hold the phone such that it can see your face. FaceID verification occurs and the iPhone asks you to place it on the pay terminal (within a modest time limit). Payment accepted. The TouchID method was slicker, but not by much. So not a huge disappointment.
In other words, I could see how Apple's engineering trade-off logic may have come down to this: having a full screen display plus FaceID is more desirable than keeping the physical home button, moving the TouchID to the back, or shipping a TouchID in display that does not work well enough. This does not imply that (FaceID >= TouchID). It only implies that (Fullscreen + FaceID) > (Smaller Screen + Home Button with TouchID) and that FaceID is "good enough", not to mention probably "very cool". Actually, I think the latter operator should be >>, because I really think the left side of that inequality is going to absolutely rock.
I don't think you should let yourself get so annoyed by people having thoughtful discourse like this, and certainly not just "fucking because". Perhaps you should slow down and give your forum-mates a little more credit. Your initial response about the scanning of a flat document at a high angle couldn't be further from the point that at least two of us were making, and that was only because you were in a huge hurry to dismiss anything we said.
a) my wife doesn't use TouchID (mostly...) because it doesn't work for her.
It works for some days, but then the process begins to become more erratic. Sometimes it'll catch her fingerprint, sometimes it won't. She can then re-learn her fingers and it'll work for some days... but she doesn't bother to do that every few days. So she just sticks to the passcode
b) she still does swipe to unlock, even as it doesn't do anything... I told her many times it doesn't make sense, but on the other hand, as she doesn't unlock with her finger, things get strange anyway.
http://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2017/06/apple-wins-a-patent-for-touch-id-redesigned-for-idevices-with-larger-displays-and-no-home-button.html
No magical physics defying 180 degree FOV sensors or even FaceID required.