Hacker News Reader

Comment by minimaxir | Hacker News Reader

A relevant note from the interview is official confirmation that the 5-presses-of-sleep/wake-disables-Touch-ID is intended as a privacy move. (and adds new info that the iPhone 8 has an easier squeeze-only trigger for this feature.)

View on HN

Slight correction – it's 5 presses of the lock/sleep button not 5 presses of the home button.

Whoops, fixed

I only had a quick skim of the article so maybe I missed it but is there a quick disable for Face ID like there is for Touch ID?

Can law enforcement just hold the phone up to your face and unlock it? We all know Touch ID is not protected under the 5th Amendment so I am going to assume Face ID is not either.

Aside from being able to disable Face ID by squeezing the side buttons, it apparently disables and requires a passcode after 2 failures (compared to 5 for Touch ID). It's not clear yet to me what counts as a failure, though: if someone gets the phone before you can squeeze it then holds it up to your face but you don't look at the phone (Face ID is said to "require your attention" to unlock), does that count as a failure?

EDIT: Apparently both Touch ID and Face ID disable after 5 failures — https://developer.apple.com/documentation/localauthenticatio...

The article said you'll be able to use the new method (hold sleep/wake and volume button for 5 seconds to require a passcode to unlock – i.e. disabling face/touch id).

Thank you! Figured I had missed it skim reading on mobile :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com