The most frustrating aspect of using technology is wanting to confront the people who made it, asking, “Do you even use this crap?” The most recent reminder of this came last week, while I was reading an article about a discount on the iPad mini 7. While I may not need to replace my iPad mini 6 yet, and it would be ridiculous to do so, I was still curious. In the article, the author bemoaned the lack of Face ID on the iPad mini. This reminded me of just how many tech reviewers get piles of tech to review, much of which they don’t use in their everyday workflows.
I placed my iPhone 13 mini, a device I use every day because I have human-sized hands, atop my iPad mini 6. I lined up the Face ID sensor on my iPhone where it would be on my iPad. Then, I tried to wake my iPhone in a way that I had recently woken my iPad, from sitting in my chair comfortably. Nothing. I leaned over my table further, arching my back and craning my neck, stretching, until, finally, my iPhone saw my face and unlocked.
Meanwhile, I unlocked my iPad with a press of a button. I didn’t even have to look at it.
It’s a reminder that different devices do different things. My iPhone usually sits in a stand, facing me while at my desk, and in my hand when I’m using it. It’s looking at me, and me at it. But my iPad? In most usage situations, it’s not directly facing me. I use it as a small tablet, in many of the variety of ways someone could use a small tablet. It’s not a large iPhone for me, it’s a writing, drawing, and reading tablet. It sits on a desk, and Face ID is wildly inappropriate for it at least 90% of the time I’m using it.
It’s an issue I’ve especially noticed of the iPad mini, tech journalists wondering who uses it, then proceeding to review it. Won’t someone actually use this thing before talking about it?
In Your Hands
With technology, we have to remember that, just because we can, doesn’t mean we should. Thanks, Jurassic Park. The other night, a friend told me my septum piercing was crooked. I went to fix it, and he pointed out that I was on the wrong side. I joked that it’s like a Tesla door, you just push both sides and one of them turns out right. Big laughs. Because we’ve all had a Lyft show up and saw it was one of Musk’s overpriced vehicular abominations. Flat door “handles” beckon not for your hand, but for your eyes. Look at how sleek this is! But I have not mastered telekinesis or the Force yet. I open doors with my hands, not my eyes. My hands require that I press on both sides to see which side pops out to grasp. It’s awkward and a constant reminder that it was designed to fulfill the desires of one pathetic man’s ego, not realistically designed for human usage. Exiting the car is similarly ridiculous, a button you press. People have gotten trapped in their cars due to the lack of an easily accessed physical release when one of their many bugs caused the doors to latch shut, or when an update demanded they keep the door shut.
Can we make doors that open with a button? Yes. Should we? Can the button work when a car is submerged? Can a button work without power? Is it intuitive? Does it give a space to grip for people who may have difficulty entering or exiting a vehicle? No. Then, no, we should not make car doors that exclusively open with buttons. The digital world is sleek and cool, but the truth is, we are human. We are analog machines made of flesh. We need to be able to touch things to use them. Grip them. Put our weight on them. We need different ways to operate them because we all have different physical abilities. We need these things because humans are not above the limitations of a physical world.
… Or on Your Desk
The iPad doesn’t come with an Apple Pencil, but for many, the drawing and writing device is a core part of the experience. Personally, I think the Apple Pencil would be a cool place to add Touch ID, but that is a discussion for another day. Writing on the iPad to take notes, using the new Math Notes feature, digitally paint or draw, it’s all primarily done with your iPad on a desk. And you can get special stands and drawing tables that will elevate it, point it towards you, but unless your setup is portable and convenient, it’s unlikely you’ll take that to classrooms or on a train. The iPad, especially the portable and compact iPad mini, when used for notes or art, most often sits flat on a desk. To unlock it with Face ID would require hunching over it. To do so with Touch ID requires a tap. A tap on a device you’re already reaching to use. Nothing could be easier. Nothing could be more human.
Apple, and many tech pundits, fall into the trap of thinking, “Well Face ID is available and it’s better on the iPhone, so why not make it on the iPad?” Perhaps they might say the same for devices you never look at to use. They may also forget when Face ID became all but useless during the earlier years of the COVID-19 pandemic, where we’d have to pull our masks down to use our phones. An improvement made to one piece of tech does not belong everywhere else. That will be a point made in tech commentaries regarding AI in the years to come.
I have some Procreate brushes I like to use on my iPad. I find shading by hand on my iPad is handier than doing it on my Mac. So, while I did much of this drawing on my Mac, I swapped it over to my iPad for some finishing touches. To do this, I simply exported the layer I’d need as a PNG, and AirDropped it to my iPad mini. But AirDrop requires your device is awake. Without looking away from my Mac’s screen, I reached over, pressed the unlock button, and saw it appear as an AirDrop option on my screen instantly. One click and I was in business. My flow was never interrupted, I never had to look away.
Try that with an iPad limited by Face ID.
An Option for Everyone
As someone who designs apps and software experiences frequently, I think a lot about accessibility. That makes me rare in the software world, but it shouldn’t. Disabilities are not things to happen to people, they are things society puts on people. Once I understood that poor design could make a person disabled, I made it a requirement on every project I’m in charge of. Someone can use the app perfectly fine if you make sure VoiceOver and TalkBack are as bug-free as the GUI.
It’s because of accessibility considerations that I know Touch ID isn’t for everyone either. The person with motor control issues may prefer needing to only look at their device for Face ID, while the person with vision issues may prefer the Touch ID solution. Then there’s how people use it. The person who has an iPad just to read comics and play games doesn’t need to be able to use it when it’s flat on a desk. They’re always holding it. The person who only uses it for note taking would likely switch to a paper notebook if they had to continually interrupt their attention by hunching over a desk to look at an iPad to unlock it begin taking notes on it. Either that or switch to a digital notebook lacking privacy.
Apple’s Approach
Android users and manufacturers are laughing right now. Because, on most Android devices, you have in-screen fingerprint readers and face identifying cameras. It’s easy to have both. It does increase the costs, and therefore shrinks profit margins if those costs aren’t reflected in a similar increase in price, but Apple has been gouging their customers on price for decades, that effect would be minimal.
It also raises another issue. Apple likes to tell users there’s only one way to do something. They don’t want to give you the option to use Touch ID or Face ID in the same device because they want to tell you that Face ID is better, even if it isn’t the best option for everyone. Apple’s “You must do it our way” philosophy isn’t only ableist, it creates usage issues for many consumers.
That leads to sales issues. Going back to not buying an iPad mini 7, even with a $100 discount, I wouldn’t buy an iPad mini that had Face ID because I need one with Touch ID. It’s the same reason I decided to buy an iPad Air instead of an iPad Pro. The iPad Air worked better for me, as I mostly used it for notes and drawing. I had no need for an iPad Pro with Face ID because it would be inconvenient for me to use. I went from buying the Pro-level iPad every time I upgraded to the one with smaller profit margins for Apple, all because they took an option away.
If Apple and other tech companies don’t design for humans, humans won’t buy their products. It won’t be a failing of the size factor of the iPad mini, but of the poor design choices Apple made. But how often does Apple admit they’ve made a mistake?