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Comment by SlowRobotAhead | Hacker News Reader

So TouchID is good enough for laptop but they “just can’t” make a phone with it anymore huh? Rabble.

As I recall, the T2 is essentially a gimped A10. FaceID relies partially on the neural engine in the A11 and later to retrain its image of you and continue to work reliably, even when your face undergoes subtle changes.

Or essentially, until they release an updated T series chip which includes the neural engine, which probably won’t be until Mac OS X can take advantage of it, it is TouchID or nothing as far as biometric auth goes for Macs.

I never really understood fingerprint scanners on phones. Is it really more useful to you than e.g. a headphone jack?

I mean, I have a 6s which has a headphone jack and a fingerprint scanner. Happy as a clam. I have "wake on lift" on and I grab it by the bottom quadrant and touch id works 90% of the time.

I really want the better camera of the newest iphone, but I am weary of face ID and I really don't want bluetooth headphones. I already lose headphones a ton as it is.

FaceID is rock solid...Both it and TouchID have there ups and downs but FaceID has been great since day 1 with the X.

100% agree with the bluetooth headphones. I have lost multiple pairs. AirPods are now something I have to track in my day to day carry... Phone / keys / wallet / AirPods... which is a little annoying.

Before finger print scanners I couldn’t be bothered entering a passphrase every time. It was an important security feature.

Yes. I use the fingerprint scanner a couple dozen times a day. I've never used the headphone jack.

> Is it really more useful to you than e.g. a headphone jack?

Why are you presenting this as a dichotomy? Those aren't mutually exclusive features. If I had to choose between the 2, then I would most certainly choose the fingerprint reader, but there isn't anything that fundamentally prevents the two from being in the same phone (the original Pixel had both, for example).

I think Apple are clearly capable of making a phone with TouchID, they only want to make phones with FaceID.

I don't really understand why you'd want TouchID over FaceID, have you used an iPhone with FaceID longterm? I have had a X from day one, FaceID does have its short comings like having to pick it up to use it (or lean over your phone) but overall it is much better, and had use cases TouchID can't be used in - just getting out of the shower for instance.

I think Apple want screens on their laptops to be as thin as possible, they can fit in a camera for FaceTime, but cannot fit a FaceID sensor, hence why the laptop have TouchID and not FaceID.

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