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Apple Explains Face ID On-stage Failure (bbc.com)
Apple has explained why its new facial recognition feature failed to unlock a handset at an on-stage demo (see around the 1:35:58 mark here) at the iPhone X's launch on Tuesday. From a report: The company blamed the Face ID glitch on a lockout mechanism triggered by staff members moving the device ahead of its unveil. Apple's software chief dealt with the hiccup by moving on to a back-up device, which worked as intended. But the hitch was widely reported. "People were handling the device for [the] stage demo ahead of time and didn't realise Face ID was trying to authenticate their face," an unnamed company representative is quoted as saying by Yahoo's David Pogue. "After failing a number of times, because they weren't Craig [Federighi], the iPhone did what it was designed to do, which was to require his passcode."
they did rehearse this, no?
A device the police can unlock by just showing it to you? pass.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No one asked for this feature, but Apple wants to give it to us anyway. They have really lost touch with their user base, IMHO, and stray further and further afield. I think it may be time for another visionary but I doubt that Apple's culture will promote one as the old guard holds on for dear life.
Reception issues? You're holding it wrong
You iPhone 6 display touchscreen stops working? You must have dropped it
Video display on your Macbook flickering? Isolated, non-systemic incident
I didn't think you were supposed to remove it from its shrine. Just gaze at it with admiration. If it deems you worthy, it will unlock.
Have gnu, will travel.
Apple's explanation sounds like people simply moving the phone around caused the phone to try to authenticate via Face ID, and because the authentication attempts failed, the phone required Craig Federaghi to enter his passcode.
Seems like the phone could waste electricity trying to face authenticate when no such authentication is wanted.
Just make sure you do not leave it face up on a table anywhere where your significant other, boy/girfriend, kids and/or sibblings or just random other public could be getting into the viewing angle of that camera (sitting down eating your lunch perhaps ? Or just at your desk in class or at work ? Or relaxing on the couch with the phone on the side table ?) ...
Yet another of those "working well in a controlled environment, but not thought out for real life" "enhancements". :-)
I mean, who would ever move a mobile phone? Clearly this is an extreme corner[1] case that bears no resemblance to typical usage.
[1] Rounded, of course.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I can just hear the NSA drooling over this feature now. A phone that tries to facial-recognize everyone who gets in range? It must be one of their wildest dreams come true.
Apple never does user surveys and asks customers what they want. In Apple philosophy customers are dumb , they do not know what they want. Apple builds it and they come
**Life is too short to be serious**
Unless you've ever done a live demo in front of a lot of people, nobody can quite understand how freaky it is to have stuff go wrong like this.
A company I used to work for did a live demo of a brand new technology at a CES press conference once. Nearly every engineer in the company was on hand monitoring stuff. We must have done a dozen dry runs before the live demo, and that was after testing the crap out of it in the lab. We got it up and running before the presentation and left it running - no stopping or starting. It worked fine, but that was how freaked out the engineers and sales guys were over the demo - 'cause they've done them before and saw stuff go haywire for no particular reason.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Accurate demo of just how frustrating it will be to use this stupid feature.
... couldn't go back to passcode-only because they already told everyone how bad that is ... iris scanning didn't pan out for whatever reason ... so ... facial recognition it is. Oh yeah, and swipe up to go home, because it hadn't dawned on anyone to try that before and turns out it's the best approach.
They obviously started with the idea of removing the home button, and worked backwards from there. Let's see: no home button means no fingerprint scanning
The difference is that Microsoft never had the slogan "It Just Works".
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"People were handling the device for [the] stage demo ahead of time and didn't realise Face ID was trying to authenticate their face."
Everything had already been leaked, yet Apple's overzealous secrecy meant their own staff didn't know how to operate the devices they were being tasked to prepare for presentation. More than ample time/money/staff/resources to train the prep crew appropriately but deliberately chose not to.
I'd consider this more a management error than the prep crew.