Hacker News Reader

Comment by thom | Hacker News Reader

Does the new camera button thingy happen to be a fingerprint scanner as well? I live in a constant state of rage with Face ID, longing for my iPhone 8 Plus with its Home button and the ability to pay for things in one fluid motion.

View on HN

The fact that they have touch id on some of the ipad side power buttons, but not on the iphone, is so annoying. Face id is both great and terrible, and complementing it with touch id to cover the >5% of cases where face id fails would be such an improvement.

I really want the touch id from iPad. It's so much faster and reliable that face id. I think together would be a winning combo, but given the option, I'd take the ipad touch id over face id.

It's not. Your problems with Face ID seem to be of a super minority of users -- 99% of people I know have no problems with it.

It’s not a blocker, just that it’s strictly more work, every single time.

If Face ID constantly fails for someone they'll get another phone, so even if 95% of current users are happy it's hard to tell how well it works.

Given the numbers the SE is selling, it might totally be a factor, on top of the price.

How is using face id for payments not a fluid motion? Double click on the side button and it’s ON to make payments, no need to do anything else. While on Touch ID you have to first initiate the payment and then unlock with a finger (2 steps)?

Touch ID works faster for me. I have it on the iPad and Mac and it's good. Face ID frequently fails, especially if I'm in bed.

I must have bad fingers cos Touch ID is more miss than hit. More often than not, I'll just type in my password on the Mac. The Touch ID rarely works faster. As for iPhone, the Face ID works (for me) soooo much faster and reliable than my finger ever did. I don't miss Touch ID for a second.

Fascinating. I guess we must fall on the outside of each tool's distribution. Ah well.

With Face ID you have to take your phone out, double click, then hold it up to your face and wait for it to work, then hold it out to do a contactless payment. With Touch ID you just take your phone out of your pocket with your thumb on the home button and pay instantly (you don’t have to initiate anything).

Even if you’re just paying on the phone, the double side click plus wait is a wacky gesture to make compared to just moving your thumb down a bit.

Too many payment terminals are at weird angles where it’s hard to be in NFC range AND angled at my face.

That's what I thought too, but you actually don't have to do the face ID when it's next to NFC reader. You double click the side button, while looking at the phone - it lets you choose which card you want to use for the payment, ONLY THEN you tap the phone to the NFC range, you don't need to look at the phone anymore after you unlocked it with a double click.

Yeah you don't need to do them at once, but with Touch ID you could authenticate in one smooth motion to the NFC machine rather than having to go up to your face first.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com