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Comment by whatok | Hacker News Reader

Apple response:

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/25/apple-reduced-iphone-x-facei...

In a statement to CNBC, the company said, "Bloomberg's claim that Apple has reduced the accuracy spec for Face ID is completely false and we expect Face ID to be the new gold standard for facial authentication."

Quote from updated article at least on BBG terminal right now:

Apple spokeswoman Trudy Muller said “Bloomberg’s claim that it reduced the accuracy spec for Face ID is completely false and we expect Face ID to be the new gold standard for facial authentication. The quality and accuracy of Face ID haven't changed; it continues to be one in a million probability of a random person unlocking your iPhone with Face ID.”

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Giving a rival publication the statement instead of Bloomberg is classic Apple. The spirit of Katie Cotton lives on in Apple PR.

They gave virtually the exact same statement to Bloomberg as well.

Were they given the statement or is Bloomberg quoting what was given to other publications? In either case, if they got Bloomberg to slag themselves I tip my hat to Apple PR.

Typically they are both given the exact same statement, but CNBC was probably given the statement 6-12 hours earlier.

There is a way to read this where both companies are right, depending on which accuracy spec is being referred to.

Apple likely built Face ID to be more accurate than claimed. This is similar to what they did with waterproofing the iPhones, where for one or two years they were built to a higher waterproofing level than they were marketed as.

Imagine Apple's suppliers were building to a 1:2,000,000 accuracy rate, and they were told they could drop the accuracy to 1:1,200,000 accuracy rate. Bloomberg is right that Apple has allowed the suppliers to reduced accuracy, while Apple's statement that there continues to be a one in a million probability of a random person unlocking your phone is also true.

This is an uncharitable reading of the situation though, and I'm mostly inclined to take Apple at their word on this.

Bloomberg has turned into a Apple rumors site ever since the arrival of Mark Gurman. I have no idea why they are doing it and why the need of doing it. After all Bloomberg is straightly not in the news or publishing business.

Mark Gurman's track record is pretty good though.

> After all Bloomberg is straightly not in the news or publishing business.

What do you mean? Bloomberg News was founded in 1990 and has 2300 employees according to Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomberg_News

I believe that was an attempt at sarcasm ;)

This kind of information is relevant to the public markets, so it is relevant to Bloomberg.

(irrespective of the overall quality decline in tech reporting)

So a 1 in a million probability, with potentially 30 million phones in use within the next few months....

So like 30 times a day...assuming 1 face unlock per device per day.

The probability of 1 in a million is for a different face to be similar enough to yours to unlock. Unless there are 999 999 other people picking up your phone every day (which would be over 10 people per second), it will essentially never happen.

Also, phone requires passcode after X failed attempts, so even then you can could only try <10 other faces.

1 in a million for a RANDOM face.

Apple admitted during the announcement event that is was quite a bit lessor odds for a biological relative, especially a twin.

If we ignore the twin case, since that doesn’t apply to most people, as long as the odds are better than 1:50,000 it’s still just as good or better than TouchID.

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