Let’s just say that my wife is not so technically au fait with electronic devices as I am. So it happens that every so often I have to help her resolve issues that she is having—particularly with her mobile. Once upon a time, not so long ago, she could just hand me her iPhone, and I could log in to it, and to any websites or online services she was having trouble with. Not any more. With the advent of face recognition I have to have her sitting beside me, continually looking at the screen to log in, or to open 1Password.
I love face recognition (and Touch ID in the case of my MacBook Pro). When you are using your own device it makes the whole issue of authentication so quick and easy. But of course these systems are designed to make it far from easy for anyone but the device owner.
My question is: what is the best way to take control of a friend or client’s device—particularly iPhone—protected in this way, in order to be able to offer support? How does the Apple Store do it for example?
Your spouse would need to enter the passcode on some kind of regular basis. In my experience, my iOSx devices (one is Face ID and the other is Touch ID) require this from me at least once a week, even if the above conditions haven’t been met.
Even my iMac, which gets unlocked by my Watch, regularly asks for the account password.
In my view, the easiest thing to do for the device is to ask for the passcode when it’s handed to you, unless of course you’re in a public place. The second-easiest is for it to be handed to you unlocked.
You can add your face to her phone. I do that with my elderly mom and it’s awesome. I can access everything on her device without having to bother her to unlock everything. There are security warnings about doing it and you obviously only do it for someone you trust, but it solves the problem you’re talking about.
The security warnings are only when you first set it up, I recall. Not per use. Once the second face is set up, that person can use the phone as though it’s their own.
(Though if you don’t know the passcode, if FaceID fails for some reason, you’ll need the other person to input the passcode.)
My interpretation is that the above conditions are going to be met at least once a week – 6.5 days since the passcode + 4 hours since FaceID will be triggered on a weekly basis unless you’re continually using the device and never sleeping.
For my wife’s phone, I don’t add my face as an alternate appearance - I just use her passcode when she asks me to help her with something. She uses the built-in passwords (iCloud Keychain), so those also can work with her passcode. The same goes for her iPad mini - I haven’t added my finger to her Touch ID, and she never uses Touch ID either - she’s one of those people who have trouble with Touch ID - it just never works for her (the same goes for her mom with her iPad). Really FaceID made using her iPhone 12 mini a lot easier for her to use after her iPhone 5c and iPhone 8.
You’re absolutely right. And it seems for both me and my wife that always happens at the worst possible moment. Like no free hands, in the middle of a call just trying to quickly look up something while running to a meeting already late. I guess I should learn to trigger manual passcode entry at a better opportunity before my 6.mumble-day stretch of bliss runs out.
I didn’t know that was a thing, except for my own experiences with a series of MacBook Pros, where, even if I set up the maximum number of fingerprint scans allowed, within a week or so they don’t work any more. I’m aware of the aphorism that equates impaired intelligence with trying something that doesn’t work over and over and expecting a different result, but I’ve not (yet) been able to convince myself that I was doing something wrong. Some have suggested that a 40 year career in health care (washing my hands dozens of times daily) has obscured my fingerprints, and I know that the reader at Customs and Border Protection had difficulty reading my prints when I did my “Global Entry” interview a few weeks ago, so perhaps that IS the case.
Yeah–I don’t usually get anywhere near the 6.5 day window on my phone. FaceID doesn’t recognize me without glasses or before I take my CPAP mask off, so if I need to check anything before getting out of bed in the morning I need to use the passcode.
I know the topic started by discussing using Face ID on iOS, but I responded to an assertion that “Touch ID just doesn’t work” for some people. And, apparently, Face ID won’t be COMING to MacBooks any time soon, unless Apple uses thicker lid panels that can enclose the optics needed for higher resolution imaging.
I have a cousin for whom Touch ID will always fail after setting it or soon after, her husband can set Touch ID on her devices. For me Face ID is always a 50/50 chance of working however many times I set it up, but Touch ID always works.
Yes, I should have been clearer. Unlocking my wife’s phone using the passcode is trivial, and I can do this. But the issue was that she has several apps set up to use Face ID. If I want to access any of these I have to resort to using the relevant password to open the app—and to use that password I have to open 1Password. And the password for 1Password is long and complicated—and I have to use it every time I switch away from 1Password and back again. When you can use Face ID to open 1Password the process of continually reopening it is not an issue.
But now Marc Z has told me I can set up my face as an alternative the whole problem is resolved.
Unfortunately we use 1Password, so the passcode to unlock her iPhone does not allow access to her other passwords. To do that I have to enter her long and complicated 1Password password, every single time I want to open it—which is often when accessing it to retrieve passwords for her other Face ID protected apps.
I guess I should learn to trigger manual passcode entry at a better opportunity before my 6.mumble-day stretch of bliss runs out. 
