iPhones Look Back at You, Android Phones Await Your Touch

Reading Time: 6 minutes.

While Apple plans to stick with Face ID, Android manufacturers are using in-screen fingerprint readers. Which is better?

I sometimes make a funny face when I look at my iPhone to unlock it. I might give it the ol’ double finger guns or a wink. It always recognizes me, with or without doing a silly face, but it’s just a bit more fun. I’m aware that these things might look a bit weird, but, frankly, at a certain point in your life, you realize everyone is weird, we’re all unique, and there’s no point in hiding your weirdness.

But do I enjoy Face ID? Well… no, not really. In fact, I make the faces as a way to kind of spice up an interaction that is otherwise unpleasant. You know when you nervously joke with your doctor before the highly personal parts of your visit? It’s kind of like that. I literally grin and bear it (unlike the doctor’s office, where you grin and bare it).

Face ID takes longer than Touch ID, requires me to look directly at my iPhone in portrait orientation, and doesn’t always work if I did something like yawn. It’s too sensitive, and too easy to mess up.

In my review of the HTC U11, a phone I got after the iPhone X, I praised the fast fingerprint sensor. I had forgotten that unlocking a phone could be seamless. I honestly think I use my iPhone X less frequently because it’s such a crapshoot to unlock!

You often interact with your phone from angles Face ID can’t use. Sometimes you don’t even look at your phone to use it, like typing up a text while walking, or controlling your music. However, you always touch your smartphone. That’s why fingerprint sensors make the most sense. While you do generally have to look at your phone, you don’t have to look at it in the weirdly specific way that Face ID requires. Fingerprint sensors, on the other hand, are seamless.

Android and iOS are splitting in a new way: authentication, and they’re only going to get more different in the next few years.

Kuo’s Predictions

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is usually quite accurate with his predictions. He believes mobile biometric security will splinter into two groups. On one side, we’ll have Apple, with iterations of Face ID finding its way onto your iPhones, iPads, and Macs. On the other side, we’ll have Android manufacturers making increasingly seamless fingerprint readers. So far, his prediction holds water. We expect the next iPhones to have Face ID, hopefully with improvements over the original.

Meanwhile, Android manufacturers have been unable to replicate Face ID with the same level of security that Apple has set. However, they’ve made great strides in fingerprint technology. The next Samsung Galaxy phone will likely have an in-display fingerprint scanner, as many Android manufacturers like Vivo, OnePlus, and Xiaomi have already done. This will make interacting with your phone in any way the biometric security for your phone.

Apple’s Looking at You

Apple wasn’t the first to add a fingerprint sensor to a phone. In fact, Apple’s often not the first company to do something. They usually are the ones to do something right. With Touch ID, Apple did something right. They took the idea of a fingerprint sensor and improved upon it in the ways that would make it useful. For example, Touch ID used something called a secure enclave. It’s an area of the storage that’s encrypted and locked away from other apps. Developers can use it to ensure password storage is independent of any other apps on your phone. Apple uses it to store your fingerprints, keeping them perfectly secure. Early Android fingerprint sensors failed to keep your biometrics secure.

Apple wasn’t the first company to use facial recognition either. However, thus far, they’re the only company to do it right. Or, rather, as best as one can do facial recognition. Facial recognition systems used my Microsoft and Android manufacturers are prone to false authentications. A simple photo of a user can unlock these devices. It’s woefully insecure. Apple’s usage of 3D mapping, machine learning, and requirements for small movements and eye attention make Face ID far more secure. Apple even says it’s more secure than Touch ID. However, unlike Touch ID, Face ID can be easily fooled by twins, similar looking siblings, and children. In reality, Face ID is very secure for those it works for, and useless for those it wouldn’t. For everyone, it’s slower than the Touch ID system it replaces.

On the Mac, Touch ID only exists on the MacBook Pro. This is because non-portable Macs wouldn’t have a good place to put a sensor. Apple doesn’t want to lock you into a keyboard, so the only place it makes sense to have Touch ID is on the keyboard of a portable Mac. But Face ID is something else. Face ID could be on any Mac, and could even be sold as a separate accessory for the Mac Mini and Mac Pro, like a small webcam. Because Face ID isn’t locked to a keyboard or device, it could be anywhere. Face ID actually makes more sense on the Mac than it does on iOS. However, Apple now has one solution that will eventually work across their platforms, giving them the uniformity they love.

The truth is, Face ID on the iPhone X was more like a beta release than a final product. Apple’s hardware wasn’t quite ready. They’ll continue to improve Face ID though. Eventually, it’ll be faster, more easily distinguish siblings and children, and be more useful at different angles. However, you’ll still always have to look directly at it, hold it the right way, and if you’ve got an identical sibling, you better trust them a whole lot.

Android’s Fingerprint Fancy

While Apple’s improving their facial recognition technology, Android manufacturers are far behind. Android devices and Windows computers can be fooled by photographs, changes in appearance, eyewear, or other such everyday distractions. To actually copy Face ID would be extremely difficult. Apple bought a company that was already working on similar tech, giving them a huge head start. Android manufacturers are at least another year behind Apple, if they want to pursue it at all.

So what’s a non-Apple phone manufacturer to do? Take Apple’s idea. Not Face ID, but the idea to take an existing technology and do it right. For this, Android manufacturers are looking to improving the fingerprint sensor. A sloppy comparison can be made between Face ID and fingerprint sensors. Both systems use things you’re already doing to interact with your phone. You’re already touching it and looking at it. Both take that a step further, by inconveniencing you in some way. Face ID requires you to hold your phone a certain distance away from your face, straight on, and in portrait orientation. Fingerprint sensors require you to touch a sensor.

Obviously, the way to improve this would be to make your phone be able to detect your face at nearly any angle, and to make fingerprint sensors work anywhere on the phone. While Apple hasn’t mastered wide angle Face ID with landscape orientation yet, Android manufacturers are mastering the latter: touch nearly anywhere to unlock your phone.

In-Display Fingerprint Sensors

You’ve got to touch your display to use it, why not use that touch to authenticate your device? In-display fingerprint sensor technology has been in the works for years now. Before the iPhone X was revealed, we speculated that Apple could use the technology, though it didn’t appear to be ready yet. However, technology moves fast, and already Android manufacturers are catching up.

Vivo released the Nex, a bezel and notch-free phone with a pop-up selfie camera and the X21. Both feature a huge in-display fingerprint sensor area. The bottom half of the screen functions as a fingerprint sensor, allowing you to intuitively pick up your phone and start using it. Cnet claims it works quite well. Xiaomi has the Mi 8, with it’s pressure sensitive in-display fingerprint sensor. OnePlus, Huawei, Oppo, and Samsung will release smartphones with in-display fingerprint sensors shortly as well. The technology wasn’t ready yet when Apple introduced the iPhone X, but it certainly seems to be now. However, Apple’s has chosen its path, and they rarely reverse course.

In-Display vs Look at the Display

iOS and Android differ in many ways. iOS has better apps, better interconnectivity, better privacy, and a uniform—yet predictable—interface. Android is highly customizable, with an exciting—albeit invasive—operating system. Both are great in different ways, and each one appeals to people for different reasons. I’m an Android engineer but use iOS. I have friends on my company’s iOS team that use Android. The OS wars fought across subreddits and forums are silly. However, now they have something else to argue about. iOS and Android are about to become very different when it comes to authentication.

Android is going to continue to work on in-display fingerprint sensors. Now that Android has its own version of Apple’s secure enclave, biometric security on Android is safe. These phones will be easy to use, you’ll be able to use them without looking, and eventually, they’ll become so seamless you forget there’s an authentication system in place. It’ll also be the platform most popular among twins because Face ID will never differentiate between identical siblings. Fortunately, most twins trust their siblings, but you never can be too careful. How could you be sure your twin isn’t an evil twin? Unless… are you the evil twin?

iOS will stick to their guns, even if many fans believe they shouldn’t. Fortunately, Face ID will improve. It’ll get better at recognizing you from different angles, with a wider field of view. It’ll never be good for twins, but perhaps it’ll eventually be able to tell siblings and children apart. Face ID will also never work without you looking at it, so, if you’re like me and frequently walk while using your phone without looking down, you may be disappointed. And, while Apple brags that Face ID works with wet hands, the swipe up gesture necessary to actually use your phone does not.

 

Apple and Android manufacturers will continue to improve their authentication technology, each branching in a different direction. Which do you prefer?

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Sources:

• Jenna Ezarik, YouTube
• Richar Gao, AndroidPolice
• Mike Wuerthele, AppleInsider