Compared with my last mobile phone, iPhone 6, iPhone X's experience in using wallet app for payment is not very good. A typical scenario is that most POS machines are placed on the counter, and the counter is relatively low. When you use your mobile phone to approach the POS machine for payment, it is a bit troublesome to look down at your mobile phone for face recognition.
When unlocking with iPhone X face recognition fails, the phone will ask you to enter the unlocking password. This logic is easy to understand. After all, face recognition is unsuccessful, and the user's access rights can be confirmed by password. However, I found that I have to enter the password after restarting the phone, and I also have to enter the password for the iPad (fingerprint unlocking) that has not been unlocked for several days. Why?
Before answering this question, let's go back to the launch of iPhone X. Craig federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, came to the demo platform to demonstrate the new functions of iPhone X. He picked up the phone and said that it was always convenient for us to unlock this phone, and it was unlocked at a glance. The voice just fell and the first unlock failed. Later, people tried again and failed. They said "Hehe" in their mouths, picked up the spare machine and unlocked their faces successfully to avoid embarrassment.
After the press conference, many people spit out this paragraph, but the wind turned. Because when the phone is unlocked on the spot, "Your password is required to enable face ID" will be displayed on the phone screen. So it wasn't the demo that screwed up, but the security mechanism of the mobile phone led to this scene.
Apple SVP demo phone unlock
The picture is from macworld.com.
The restarted mobile phone, the iPad that didn't take a few days, and the iPhone X at the press conference are all behind the security mechanism. The question is, what other scenarios will trigger mandatory password entry? What is the reason behind this compulsion?
Let's take a look at the scenario where a password must be entered. In a Face ID security guide from Apple (click on the original text at the end of the article), I found the answer:
The device has just been turned on or restarted.
The device has been locked for more than 48 hours.
No password has been used to unlock the device in the past six and a half days, and no face ID has been used to unlock the device in the past four hours.
The device received a remote lock command.
After five failed facial matches.
Press and hold any volume button and side button at the same time for 2 seconds, and then turn off/turn on the SOS emergency contact.
IPhone and iPad users can think about whether they have encountered the above scenarios.
As for why the password is mandatory, I don't understand it myself. Then I called Apple customer service and talked for more than 20 minutes. The customer service told me that there are two main considerations: one is to prevent forgery of fingerprints and faces, and the other is to prevent users from forgetting their passwords. Because Apple's systems (including mobile phone iOS system and computer Mac OS system) are closed, the security depends entirely on the password keeper. Both fingerprint unlocking and face unlocking are a "superstructure" on the basis of password (including all stored information): if fingerprint and face unlocking are to be used, a password must be set; After triggering the above six scenarios, you must enter a password. As for the jailbreak iPhone, iPad and Black Apple installed on the PC, you lose the security of the closed system while gaining the corresponding benefits.
So, which scene was triggered at the iPhone X conference?