Last year, when everyone started wearing masks, it became\u00a0difficult to use Apple\u2018s Face ID feature to unlock iPhones. The company made unlocking slightly faster by immediately bringing up the passcode screen when your iPhone detected you\u2019re wearing a mask. Now, it plans to let you unlock the phone with Face ID while wearing your mask [\u2026]<\/b>
\nLast year, when everyone started wearing masks, it became difficult to use Apple\u2018s Face ID feature to unlock iPhones. The company made unlocking slightly faster by immediately bringing up the passcode screen when your iPhone detected you\u2019re wearing a mask. Now, it plans to let you unlock the phone with Face ID while wearing your mask \u2014 but you would need an Apple watch. As noted by Engadget, the new iOS 14.5 developer beta allows you to do that if you\u2019re wearing an unlocked Apple Watch. [Read: India\u2019s new customs duties will make your next phone pricier] This is how the feature would work: you\u2019ll have to manually enable an option to unlock your iPhone with a less accurate Face ID along with your Apple Watch for authentication. You\u2019ll be notified on your watch every time you unlock your iPhone successfully \u2014 which can be really annoying if you unlock it frequently. I\u2019d rather stick with passcode punching for when I\u2019m wearing a mask. As my colleague Callum suggested, it would be nice of Apple to bring back Touch ID. The company included Touch ID under the power button in the iPad Air released last year. It could come up with a similar solution with the iPhone, or as Bloomberg\u2019s Mark Gurman suggested, it could debut its own under-the-screen fingerprint scanner. Right now, the new Face ID unlock system is in testing, but bank on us to write a guide in our Basics section when it\u2019s available to everyone. Did you know we have a newsletter all about consumer tech? It\u2019s called Plugged In \u2013 and you can subscribe to it right here. Published February 2, 2021 \u2014 05:44 UTC<\/p>\n