If you watch Tuesday's Apple fall event keynote, then you should not only notice that Apple released iPhone 8 or iPhone X, but also Face ID appeared to fail to recognize Craig Federighi's face, leading to doubts about the feature's reliability and accuracy. And Apple confirmed the situation in a statement to Yahoo last night.
Apple explained that the demo iPhone X had been handled by several people before being setup at the demo table for Craig Federighi. Face ID had tried to authenticate the faces of everyone who handled the device, and after failing, the iPhone X moved to require a passcode. Thus, when Federighi went to demo Face ID, the iPhone X was already in passcode mode.
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."
In order to prevent spoofing and hardware attacks, Apple's biometric system is automatically disabled after a predetermined number of unsuccessful attempts. For example, the Touch ID allows users to try five attempts to authenticate with their finger before requiring a passcode. Apple documentation shows Face ID allows only two tries before being disabled.
The ins and outs of Face ID and its reliability will remain largely unknown until the iPhone X launches in November and is in the hands of customers. After the event, members of the media contacted real-time, but the comments were confusing. Most people are generally impressed with Face ID and see it work seamlessly, but at least one report shows that the feature does not work until the display was turned on and off.
Face ID uses the infrared scanning techniques to create a mathematical model of user's face, which is compared to a facial scan stored on the device to authenticate. Because it uses infrared, Face ID works in dark and low light conditions, and Apple says it also also works with hats, glasses, and beards, makeup, and other items that might partially obscure the face.
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