If you were watching, or at least keeping a close eye on the Apple announcements last week, you will remember that the Face ID demonstration didn’t go as planned. But, Apple wants you to know that it wasn’t a “fail” like everyone has been saying. So what happened? You might be surprised to hear that Face ID actually worked. What am I saying exactly? I myself have been kind of critical of Apple with Face ID as I’m not convinced it would work. But several people had handled the iPhone X prior to the demo last week. Which means, Face ID was trying to authenticate all the face of everyone who had touched the device. If Face ID doesn’t recognize you, the iPhone will prompt you to put in your passcode. Which is why when Craig Federighi started the demo, Face ID was already in passcode mode.
Here’s what Apple had to say about it:
People were handling the device for stage demo ahead of time,” says a rep, “and didn’t realize Face ID was trying to authenticate their face. After failing a number of times, because they weren’t Craig, the iPhone did what it was designed to do, which was to require his passcode.” In other words, “Face ID worked as it was designed to.”
Many are calling this a fail, but to me, it actually is a success. Sure, Apple didn’t actually know that they were actually giving a better demonstration than they had planned. But they did. Even if it was perceived to be a failure. When Federighi picked up the second device, it worked flawlessly. But a lot of people are calling this a hard core fail and saying that Face ID doesn’t work. Which is understandable considering that Face ID is completely replacing Touch ID on the iPhone X. This apparently led to a brief dip in Apple’s share price. Which means these things work incredibly fast. And in some cases might cause some serious damage.
I myself have had some criticism about Face ID. I am not in love with it, and I am not convinced it’s as good of technology as Apple would have us believe. But, everyone is a nay-sayer when it comes to new technology. We all are. We are all waiting to find out what isn’t going to work so we can criticize it. I do this myself. But that doesn’t mean that the technology is sound. My motivation for “criticizing” has more to do with wanting to ask questions, and get people to think about things. I don’t usually do it to actually criticize the product.
So is that all it is? Face ID in general is making a lot of waves recently. Senator Al Franken sent a letter to Apple raising some privacy concerns. And if he’s concerned about it, other people probably are too. That doesn’t mean that Apple’s share prices should drop because of it. Again, it’s new technology. This is something we’ve never seen before. How often does amazing technology get turned down because people don’t understand it or have the foresight to see where it will go? I’m not saying that Face ID is the next iPhone (yes, I did that on purpose), but we won’t know until we give it a chance. So stop beating up Apple and buy their new products.
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