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Comment by suprfsat | Hacker News Reader

Thank you. I've been saying this every year since 2007.

Yearly deltas sure, but if you upgrade your phone every 3 or 4 years, it can feel like an improvement.

IMO TouchID, Multitasking, Front Camera, LTE, Video, and the Touch Bar all fundamentally changed the smartphone experience and were worth upgrading over.

If the iPhone 13 had TouchID, I would buy it in a heartbeat.

I look for two things in every phone: fingerprint reader and headphone jack. I had to switch to android after my iPhone SE (original) died.

Honest question: why are people keen on fingerprint sensors? I see this regularly. Is it privacy concerns with FaceID or convenience with a mask on, or...?

It’s faster. You don’t have to be looking at it. You don’t have to long-swipe up the screen. It works while it’s lying on the desk/bed/couch.

The SE is already unlocked by the time it’s out of my pocket, so I just see HN right away instead of holding it in front of me, looking at it, swiping up to authenticate and then seeing HN.

Bonus that it works in stores with a mask on so I don’t have to type my passcode in public as a result of a FaceID phone seeing the mask and popping up the passcode prompt, or pulling down my mask temporarily.

The TouchID worked for me every time. I never had to think about the fact that it existed.

I’m constantly trying to accommodate FaceID.

Like 75% of the time when I’m unlocking my phone it’s either laying on my desk or I’m laying in bed. FaceID rarely works for me in these situations.

My wife eventually just turned it off on her phone and went to purely using a passcode because it failed to work so often it was less annoying to go straight to the passcode prompt rather than wait for FaceID to timeout first.

You can tap “FaceID” in the center to open the keypad instantly.

TouchID failed constantly when I had recently showered or washed my hands.

Because the police can just point your phone at your face and it will unlock

https://mashable.com/article/police-try-to-unlock-handcuffed...

Like they can just put your finger on it and unlock it? At least face ID won’t unlock if you’re looking away from the screen. The police can’t control where your looking as easily as they can control your finger.

Face masks. It is also faster even when I’m not wearing a mask. I wouldn’t mind both.

I just like having less biometric data in my phone, being able to unlock it without looking at it, and being able to tape my front camera if I want.

Yup, I have the 12Pro and don't feel like all the improvements to camera and apparently battery life are worth shelling out $250 (after trade in credit) is worth it, without also getting touchID which seems to be perpetually in next year's phone for the last 3 years.

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