Comment by DCKing | Hacker News Reader

Comment by DCKing | Hacker News Reader

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I'm not sure why I get this response. You seem to imply I have issue with the quality of Apple's next gen implementation, which I have twice explained I don't. Or you imply that I can't have an opinion on the concept of and hassle involved with face unlocking in general, which (as I also already explained) has been around for years and Apple clearly has not made any conceptual changes to.

Let me clarify for the third time. My opinion is the following: no face unlock mechanism can be as good as a fingerprint unlock for the flexibility and speed of use as explained above. FaceID will likely be far and away the best face unlock method we've ever seen but it's still a face unlock method and therefore slower and more restrictive than a fingerprint unlock. What I don't get is that nobody else is talking about it, because Apple has successfully spun the discussion to be about the quality of FaceID as opposed to the (lack of) merits for face unlocking on smartphones.

I'd actually be excited to have face unlock on laptops and PCs (actually that exists already as Windows Hello, but dedicated hardware would be nice). But on phones I consider it to be inferior to fingerprints conceptually.

Seems you have a failure of imagination. I'll try:

When did you last unlock your phone without subsequently looking at it?

Seems to me FaceID removes the need to first unlock, then use phone. New way is: just use phone. So I expect FaceID to be faster to use.

> When did you last unlock your phone without subsequently looking at it?

I unlock my phone and then not look at it when making phone payments (Apple Pay will definitely take a step back with this). I also switch between maps and driving apps in the car while keeping my eyes on the road. I often peek at something on my screen well outside of the FOV of any front camera. My use of my unlocked phone is not at all limited to things I need to take my face's positioning in account for.

I don't particularly appreciate being accused of a failure of imagination and then having to respond to an arbitrary limited assumption of my smartphone use. It's not my imagination that's the problem here.

But the point is moot. My entire issue with it that I don't want to wait to initiate unlocking once it's in front of my face. Even if FaceID is instant, and I would accept that all my use is in the FOV of the front camera, Apple still requires me to slide to unlock the device.

you don't have to "look at it" -- as long as there's line of sight it should work. I pretty much agree with your position though, just wanted to clarify that as long as the infrared scanner can find your eyes/nose you're good to go. Another commenter pointed out that you need to swipe, which supports your point that it's slower than touch ID. maybe I'm getting pulled in by the Cook RDF, but I'm cautiously optimistic.

Of you don't particularly appreciate it do you? I didn't know - terribly sorry.

Face ID requires looking at the phone, and then swiping up. The swipe is what takes the extra time. It means that your phone is not ready to use by the time you look at it.

Touch ID lets you do the touch before you look at the phone. The phone unlocks while you take it out of your pocket, so by the time you look at it, it's already unlocked.

This whole conversation is stupid since none of use have even tried the thing.

You have to fumble about for the home button and do an extra click for Touch ID - it's not much different, except it requires less precision/friction on the part of the user for Face ID presumably.

Face ID should also significantly improve the UX around all interactions that used Touch ID prior (Apple Pay, authentication for third party apps, etc.).

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