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Comment by elzbardico | Hacker News Reader

Non technical users do some things that we don't even dream about doing, like setting auto-lock to "Never".

EDIT: I see some people got offended with the bit about Non-Technical users and downvoted me to Hades. I apologize. Not everyone is paranoid like me.

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I have auto lock disabled, because I'm the one to decide when I don't need to look at my screen anymore. But that's different from not requiring faceid/passcode upon unlock.

Same for me - has worked for a few years now. The only hitch is when I allow someone else to use the phone and they just put it down after use expecting the screen to lock automatically, which it won't...

I often find myself leaving my phone unlocked on the table while I do something else, knowing that locking it risks the app I'm using discarding my state so it can show me more Content despite me having more than adequate RAM. I don't have it set to Never, but it is longer than default to accommodate this.

I have to ask, why? I use the default settings without issue. Face ID is near instant, and I have almost never had my phone go to sleep when i don’t want it to.

I never forget to turn off my phone, probably because I'm so used to pushing the off button when I lay it down because I disabled auto lock on my first iOS device (1st gen iPod Touch). Maybe it's better now (by registering attention via face id), but back then I often found myself keeping something open as a reference and then having the screen turn off when I needed it.

edit: I just checked and indeed the settings screen says it watches for attention, so I'm willing to give it a try and enable auto unlock now...

What about when someone drives by on a motorbike and snatches it from your hand. A common way to steal phones.

I am technical, and I have no phone security (screen lock). I am sure that professional hackers can more easily steal my credentials remotely (phishing, etc) than from physical possession of my phone.

That said, I understand why most people want to use a phone screen lock.

I am sure this post will be downvoted.

You're betting on the fact that there will never be an event where a malicious party comes in contact with your phone. Which might very likely be the case, but it's not a non-existent risk.

A phone screen lock is a low friction, low cost solution for mitigating that small but impactful risk.

> You're betting on the fact that there will never be an event where a malicious party comes in contact with your phone.

For example, you might take a flight, the plane break in flight and your phone is sucked out, falls on the ground and a stranger finds it.

Don't tell me I'm paranoid and that this scenario is not realistic.

You have a few too many beers.

While your uber drive is taking you home, you sleep while using your phone and it falls from your hand without you noticing.

The next passenger is not an honest person.

I think dolmen was saying that if its likely that a phone can be found after being sucked out of an airplane, a scenario like yours is also prone to happen

I use public transit a lot, the place where I live is not exactly a small rich village in Switzerland to put it mildly.

I like going out at night to bars and restaurants and having a "few" beers or one or two bottles of wine with my wife.

Me and my wife have lost a phone in a Uber after a night out (recovered in both situations, though).

I am not a mobile developer.

Autolock makes a lot of sense to me.

I honestly feel like technical users would be using the "Never" setting more often than non-technical. When testing an app on the phone, it's really annoying having to re-unlock it because you looked away at a different screen for a while. Checking it on Android, never locking is a developer setting, regular display settings have a maximum of 30 minutes.

iOS has a few options between 30 seconds and five minutes and then one at never.

They should add 10/30/catastrophic decompression/fall from altitude.

No, you are right, the plebs are wrong.

It's a feelz > realz world where people vote with their feelz and you made them feel bad because they are doing dumb bad things.

It should always be possible to set a device timeout to never and allow WEP56 auth on your WiFi AP, but there should be a warning about the implications.

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