Apple's insistence on only having face ID when competitors have fantastic and very fast in-screen fingerprint readers is just idiotic. I was kind of onboard when they first introduced FaceID, the argument that they don't want the sensor on the back and there is no room on the front was fair enough, but right now the technology has caught up. It's crazy that you can unlock a Samsung with your face OR an in-screen fingerprint reader, but you can't an iPhone.
These competitors aren’t held to the same standards Apple is. If it turns out you can unlock these phones with a printed fingerprint copy, nobody cares. But if it happens on iPhone it’s fingerprintgate.
For now. I'd wager in the next year or two we will see TouchID in the power button or under the screen. Are there Android phones with this tech already? Yes, you can almost always count on Android phones to have new types of tech before Apple but in my experience Apple's version is much more polished/solid/secure as whole. Android had "Face unlock" for at least a year or two before Apple but it was total crap. I had a coworker who had it and he ended up turning it off because it was so buggy/unreliable. FaceID for me had been pretty rock solid and I'm very happy with it. I'll be happier with a TouchID backup but I'm more than willing to wait for a secure and seamless version and not something rushed to market.
Correct. My wording could have been better probably. I would never put Android phone's face unlock in the same category as FaceID (nor their fingerprint vs TouchID). It's been a while since I've seen tech on an Android phone that Apple later implemented where the Apple's was just equivalent to the existing Android version, it's always a bigger stop forward.
This is because Apple will not add a feature just to tick a box or add a bullet point to a feature list, they will only add it if they can actually make it work well.
The fact that it can be unlocked with a picture doesn't mean it has no security.
The main use case for phone locking is that you leave your phone in a cab, a bar or wherever else in public and someone picks it up later. That person isn't going to know who you are and have a picture of you. They're still prevented from being able to take the phone they just saw laying around and go through your emails, etc.
The parent isn't saying that Samsung's face unlock isn't still useful. Just that "a picture of your face is the password" does pass the bar for security by any reasonable definition. It's a convenience feature. Apple's FaceID comes with real, and strong, guarantees about its effectiveness. Just the same as Samsung's fingerprint scanner.
Never used a Samsung phone but touchId and faceid gates access to payments, passwords and banking apps. Typing a complex password on touch screen isn’t very fun.
Which one? Android is an operating system, not a phone. There are ones which are just as secure as an iPhone(Samsung with its Samsung Knox vault) and cheap phones which have only basic fingerprint readers(and even then I don't see what the problem is, the biometric data is stored in the storage managed by the reader chip, inaccessible to the rest of the device for every commercial fingerprint reader out there). I thought HN was all about having consumer choice?
On my S21 you can tick a "fast unlock" option for face unlock which comes with a warning that it can be fooled by a picture then. So I'm assuming that by default it can't?
From samsungs site "This will improve the recognition speed but also reduces security, increasing the possibility of a video or image being incorrectly recognized as your face."
So I assume both can be tricked but one is a little better.
It's crazy that you can unlock a Samsung with your face OR an in-screen fingerprint reader, but you can't an iPhone.
I don't think it's crazy when one considers that Samsung will put that stuff on a phone, and whether it works or not is the customer's problem. We've forgotten Samsung's earlier "face unlock" attempts, haven't we? I haven't, it was bad enough to be one of the major factors in getting me to quit using Samsung phones (and Android in general). So to argue "well, Samsung does it", meh, maybe Samsung does, maybe Samsung lets the person that stole my phone unlock that phone with my photo.
What's your point? Obviously just because Samsung's implementation used to be shitty doesn't mean apple's would be, hopefully that's not what you are suggesting?
Point is, saying "Samsung has that feature" is like saying "Tesla has L5 self-driving next month". Just because a company says something doesn't make it true, and other companies are not required to try and compete with snake oil. Apple's ability to execute has little to do with it.
But....Tesla doesn't have L5 self driving. It's bogus. It doesn't exist. Samsung has an in-screen fingerprint reader. It works. The technology clearly exists and works. Whether Samsung fucked up in the past or not is irrelevant - the fact I was pointing to was that the technology to make in-screen fingerprint readers clearly exists, as an Apple customer I'd expect them to integrate it with their usual level of polish. Do it 4x as good as Samsung. Because at the end of the day it's not about Samsung - it's about why Apple hasn't decided to introduce this feature yet despite the pandemic painfully showing that having just FaceID is not good enough. This is not a rant to say Samsung it great and apple isn't - just purely saying that once again we're in a position we've seen hundreds of times before - other manufacturers have some fancy new features that Apple hasn't integrated yet. As their customer I wish they'd hurry up.
For me, the most common scenario in which I'd want TouchID is when I have my phone resting flat on my desk. Depending on which phone case you may or may not have on your phone, the power button might be conveniently accessible. I'd prefer a version that didn't require me to lift my phone up off the desk in order to unlock it.
I have used phones with all types of fingerprint sensor. Below the screen (Moto Z, iPhone 6S), at the back, in the power button (Moto Z3), and built into screen (Moto Z4).
Built into the screen is by far superior of all. The worst is at the back, with power button at the side not far from it.
I think having it in the back is genius as that's where I always have a finger as opposed to the front. It's so awkward to try to hold the phone in my hand securely AND holding my thumb on the scanner at the same time.
About half of the times i unlock my phone is when it is resting on the table. Fingerprint scanner on the back requires picking it up first, which is extremely uncomfortable to do every time. No. Just no.
I agree, but for a different reason. Today's phones are stupidly fragile and pretty much everyone puts some sort of case on them. I don't get this obsession from phone makers to make increasingly thinner devices, when a large number of end users just put an ugly case on it. Why not make them rugged to begin with?
I'm sure Apple can design a rugged phone if they wanted to. A rugged phone designed with shock/vibration/drop protection in mind is not the same as a fragile phone with a case on top.
All kinds of ruggedization are wear items. Even a bicycle helmet needs to be replaced after it has experienced an impact. They should be easily replaceable, like phone cases are now.
There are many designs possible, I don't understand why you want to shoehorn an unsuitable design meant for providing protection to the human head onto electronics. In any case, this is a good discussion, we know what to avoid so yes - we don't want to have a design that necessitates replacing the phone.
I've always found that unlocking your device with your fingerprint scanner on the front of the device only works nicely if you're holding it with the other hand.
> the argument that they don't want the sensor on the back and there is no room on the front was fair enough
No room on the front - fine, but under the screen readers have been improving a ton and I'm sure Apple could figure out something.
Don't want the sensor on the back - I don't understand this. Why not? It works for other devices, and they could even make the Apple logo into a reader to be discreet.
Not in the S20, at least. I was about to leave the exact same message but I went to a 12 Pro with Face ID because I couldn't stand Samsung's implementation.
If people think that Face ID is inaccurate, then they clearly haven't used under-screen readers. They're slow, unreliable, and imprecise.
S20 was particularly bad, give S21 a try though if you get the chance - they improved the scanning speed and the scanning area is now 2x the size so it's a lot easier to unlock the phone.
That does sound like it addresses my two bigger issues. The one that annoyed me the most was a direct result of those issues -- I didn't know if I was even pressing in the right place about 75% of the time.
It's especially draining when every first interaction with the phone is essentially "Are my fingers too sweaty? oily? Did I tap long enough? Did I press hard enough? Too hard? Did I even tap the right place? Screw it I'll just enter my PIN".
Yeah basically the S20 used their new ultrasonic sensor for the first time and it was meant to be the greatest thing ever, except that it was pretty small and slow so it wasn't great. S21 uses the same technology for recognition accuracy, but makes it bigger and faster.
Got an S21 and the sensor works as well as any Apple ever made. But yes, it seems like the technology has matured only very recently, the first in-screen readers were pretty crap.
I mean, I own the iPhone 12, 2020 iPad Air, and the iPhone SE2, so I'd assume those are state of the art when it comes to both FaceID and TouchID, no? Should be a pretty good comparison? Is there any other apple product you think I should try? I'll be very happy to give it a go.
