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Comment by ScottWhigham | Hacker News Reader

The facial recognition is very cool. Does it take longer than a swipe+pin? I guess it's just a matter of the hardware - how long it takes the camera to focus, how long it takes the chip to process, etc. It's just that I can swipe+pin in probably 1 - 1.5 seconds and I'd be surprised if facial recognition is faster.

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Great question but dont assume speed of unlocking is what everyone based their decision on. I can tell you my mom would rather use facial recognition than entering a pin even if the latter was faster.

She did point out quirks like if her hair isn't brushed it may not work etc. It could well be that the technology isn't polished enough for Apple's standard but I know when I see an Android user use it, I walk away impressed and questioning why my iPhone can't do that.

> It could well be that the technology isn't polished enough for Apple's standard but I know when I see an Android user use it, I walk away impressed and questioning why my iPhone can't do that.

We're living in a post Siri, post Maps world. Apple is not concerned if software works before they decide to ship it.

> Apple is not concerned if software works before they decide to ship it.

The VP in charge of iOS Software Engineering was publicly fired over Siri and Maps.

Pretty sure they do care.

No, Scott Forstall was not publicly fired over Siri and Maps. He was fired because Steve Jobs was not around to protect him and he made a lot of enemies. None of it was public, there was a press release about the new roles but that's it.

It's usually very fast, around 1 second. In fact, they had to slow it down, because sometimes it recognized the face immediately, making the user wonder whether there's any security check involved. But it's useless at night, which is why I don't use it.

Takes about the same time to unlock in my experience(EVO 3D).

I'd really prefer for a different unlock method all together. I'd like my phone to be locked in case its lost/stolen, but I'd like it unlock faster. It's be fine wearing a Bluetooth-enabled accessory (ring,tie pin, device secured to the shoes/belt/pants/wallet in some fashion) that would bypass the lock because I'm with-in a given radius to the device.

Something like that is probably possible with NFC tags. My phone doesn't support them so I can't give details, but I'm fairly certain it's doable.

Depends on the lighting; can be anywhere between instant and 2s. Trade-off is the camera's useless in the dark, takes maybe 1s for the phone to realize this (or there's an override button) and falls back to pattern/PIN.

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