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iPhone 13 is great — but it suffers from one major flaw

iPhone 13 is great — but it suffers from one major flaw

iPhone 13
(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The reviews are in, and all four iPhone 13 models have set the standard for smartphones once again. The iPhone 13 Pro Max is pretty close to perfect with improved cameras, impressive battery life and a stellar display with a dynamically adjusting refresh rate. The iPhone 13 Pro is essentially the same, only $100 cheaper. And the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini have their strengths, too — they're certainly more than than afterthoughts to the iPhone 13 Pro options.

And as practiced as these phones are, they're still damn difficult to unlock.

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I'yard not talking virtually when you lot're in the condolement of your ain function — offices... now there'due south a name I haven't heard in a while — or even outside in the open up air. In those situations, the iPhone 13 models unlock via Confront ID, same as every Apple tree phone since the iPhone X. But when you're out and about and around other people wearing a mask, as you should exist in this era of COVID-19 Delta variants, unlocking an iPhone 13 is equally complicated as ever.

Face up ID is equally secure as it is because information technology reads your *whole* face up, non just the expanse effectually your optics or a flattened surface area of your kisser. That'southward why fooling Face up ID is hard, and why y'all can utilise it to verify mobile payments in addition to unlocking your telephone. But slap on a face mask, and the iPhone's TrueDepth camera can't encounter your oral cavity or the curves of your mentum. And that's when you have to meticulously tap in a passcode, as if you were living in an earlier uncivilized era.

It didn't necessarily take to be this mode. Apple had some options at its disposal to simplify iPhone unlocking with the iPhone 13 and either couldn't implement them or chose not to.

iphone 13 face id

The notch hiding the FaceID sensors is smaller on the iPhone thirteen models, but functionality is the same. (Image credit: Tom's Guide)

The well-nigh obvious change would be to add some sort of in-brandish fingerprint sensor, not unlike the ultrasonic sensor found in the Galaxy S21 lineup. In-display sensors have become and then ubiquitous on the Android side, yous'll find them included in midrange devices these days — certainly phones that don't command the iPhone's toll tag.

The trouble with in-display sensors is that they can exist hit or miss — mostly miss, based on some of the phones I've reviewed. It can accept some try for these sensors to read your finger properly; on some phones it takes me a couple of tries to successfully unlock with an in-display sensor. For Apple — which prizes the experience of its users higher up a lot of other factors — that would be a non-starter, and understandably so. Apple's not going to use such a sensor unless it works all the fourth dimension, without fail.

But there's more than one way to read a fingerprint, which Apple surely knowns since it uses this method on some iPads. You can likewise embed a fingerprint sensor in a device's power or Home push. Samsung does this with the Galaxy Z Fold three, and Apple does, likewise with both the iPad 9 and iPad Air four. Why it choose to skip that approach with the iPhone 13 is something for Apple to explain.

Can Confront ID get a fix?

It'south not as if Apple has been sitting around twiddling its thumbs while mask-wearing iPhone users accept waited for relief. iOS xiv.5 introduced a workaround that lets yous unlock your phone if you've got an Apple Watch on, using proximity sensors. Simply this only goes then far. Not only can't y'all verify payments with this method, it very obviously requires you to be wearing an Apple Watch. For some of us, that's just not going to happen. And any answer to "How practise I unlock my new $699 or more phone?" that begins "Well, first buy a $199 lookout" is not a very proficient respond at all.

iPhone iOS 14.5 watchOS 7.4 Unlock with Apple Watch

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

I'm holding out hope that there is a set to the iPhone's confront mask woes, and that information technology will be implemented with a software set downward the line. Prior to the iPhone 13's launch, a rumor emerged that Apple was testing out Face ID hardware that would permit the unlocking feature to piece of work fifty-fifty on people wearing face masks. If that feature wasn't ready when the iPhone xiii debuted, the rumor went on, information technology could ever be enabled later, once Apple tree fine-tuned the software. There were even leaked images of dummy prototypes Apple employees were supposedly using to test things out.

Now, this could exist some other one of those swing-and-a-miss rumors that pop up before a telephone launches, and there could be no such update in the works. Simply it'south not completely implausible, and it certainly beats resigning yourself to fiddling with a passcode betwixt now and the iPhone 14 launch.

Like it or not, masks are going to stick around for a while — fifty-fifty if COVID is brought to heel, there's notwithstanding the small matter of climatic change-triggered wildfires that will crave us to don protective facegear every so oft. As practiced every bit the iPhone thirteen models are, they'd be even better if Apple could figure out a style to reflect our new reality.

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Philip Michaels is a senior editor at Tom's Guide. He has strong opinions nearly Apple, the Oakland Athletics and erstwhile movies. Follow him at @PhilipMichaels.

Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/news/iphone-13-face-id-and-facemasks

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