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Comment by craigyk | Hacker News Reader

The unlock itself actually looked pretty fast... it just seemed a bit awkward that it had to be paired with a swipe to unlock.

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That matches what they did to touch ID in iOS 10: unlocking no longer actually took you to the home screen, just left you on the lock screen with your phone unlocked for... some... reason. There is a setting to change it, maybe there will be one for this as well.

Oh yeah, I forgot that I had to change that setting. I definitely hope it's the same with Face ID - I don't use home screen notifications for anything.

One of the reasons was that on newer phones (the 6S and the 7) Touch ID was so fast that it was hard to even see the lock screen. If you use the home button to wake up the phone then you would be authenticated and the screen would go away before you had a chance to see anything.

Their solution was to split it into two different steps.

You have the same issue with Face ID. If the "lock screen" went away as soon as you look at your phone you could never actually look at the notifications there.

Clearly they had to do something. Does this work well? I guess we'll find out when the reviews come out.

No, the issue is different. With FaceID, if there was no swipe, your phone would unlock all the time for no reason at all. For example while driving, or while having it flat on your desk and hovering near it, and so on.

I am very skeptical about FaceID. I actually love TouchID, can hardly imagine anything better, but Apple has surprised us before.

Yes! Imagine you just wanted to glance at your notifications. So you wake your phone and... it goes straight through to the home screen, darn it!

True, it's three things:

- attention - faceid - swipe

And no cue to know if faceid worked before swiping. I couldn't see cues (maybe I missed them).

Except for that large padlock icon that shows the unlocked state when Face ID has identified you?

Aight, I failed, but it's really not how I like such information conveyed.

Agreed. I'd want the phone to look "more asleep" when locked, e.g. a dimmed or vignetted background photo which would pop to life when unlocked.

Something that "pop" yes. A border flash, a hint at the bottom that means "you can swipe now". The [un]lock icon can stay but it's to high focus to be a good UI.

To be honest, with the full glass, I expected something like.. a full screen fingerprint scanner (have no idea if it's feasible at all). I thing TouchID is the best biometric input for casual operation.

But then you'd never be able to look at your notifications without "unlocking" the phone. That doesn't seem too useful.

Adding a clearer visual cue for unlock would have no impact one way or the other here.

Sorry, I read your first response as the screen being dimmer, not the wallpaper. I was complaining that you wouldn't be able to read notifications if the screen was dimmed but that wasn't what you said. My bad!

A padlock icon in the corner unlocks when Face ID has authenticated.

top center of the lock screen

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