14 DAY TRIAL // One of the biggest drawbacks of facial recognition systems like the ones that are available on the iPhone is the reduced reliability when wearing a mask, something that these days has become a must-do for everyone.
And because the ongoing health crisis that happens worldwide makes using an iPhone with Face ID pretty much impossible, Apple has decided to improve the way we unlock the smartphone with a small tweak.
iOS 13.5 beta, which is now available for developers, introduces a small chance to the unlocking system, with the iPhone detecting that you’re wearing a mask and thus getting you straight to the passcode screen.
Previously, the iPhone attempted to scan your face, so you just had to wait for the process to fail in order to be provided with the option to enter the passcode.
Easy passcode unlocking
Thanks to today’s update, you can just swipe up to enter the passcode, so the whole thing becomes much faster and more convenient if you’re wearing a mask.
It’s important to keep in mind this is still a beta for the time being, so it remains to be seen how fast Apple brings it to production devices. I’m guessing it won’t take long for the whole thing to happen given the health crisis that I told you about, so expect this feature to be part of the next stable iOS update going live any day now.
For now, your only option on an iPhone with Face ID is to manually enter the passcode every time the facial recognition scanning fails. This isn’t really convenient, but the only workaround is to just disable Face ID entirely and stick with a passcode every time you go outside wearing a mask.