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Comment by lowkey | Hacker News Reader

I agree. I have a last gen base iPad with Touch ID and a home button. I am pretty tech savvy but actually prefer this form factor.

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Touch ID is so drastically superior to Face ID in so many common “iPad scenarios”, eg. laying in bed with face partially obscured.

I don’t understand Apple’s intense internal focus on FaceID only. FaceID with TouchID as an option when a device is flat on the table or when your face is obscured is so much nicer.

FaceID builds profitable user habit loops. More real-estate on the screen to show things, easier to thoughtlessly purchase things if your password is a glance at the camera, etc.

I don't think this is a user-focused decision, I believe it's a profit-focused one.

You can't buy things just by looking at the camera, there are forced button presses and the App Store tends to make you enter your password.

> I don’t understand Apple’s intense internal focus on FaceID only.

It isn't. Just a few days ago the new iPad Air has Touch ID.

Only iPad Pro uses Face ID. For iPad Pro users who use it for work and unlock it hundreds of times a day when in an office or during a commute, Face ID is vastly superior.

I actually can’t use Touch ID, at least year-round.

I have naturally very dry skin, and no matter how much moisturizer I used in colder months, I had to constantly have it relearn my fingerprint, to the point where I would just give up and use a passcode instead.

Face ID, on the other hand, has been flawless since my first phone with it in 2018 (minus some mask-related challenges during the pandemic). It and ProMotion are basically the two reasons I bought an iPad Pro over an iPad Air.

My mother had the same issue. TouchID would stop recognizing her finger less than a day after setting it up.

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