1. It’s much less reliable. Especially in bed when I get paged at night I almost always have to revert to PIN auth, which is unfortunate when I’m disoriented and seconds count.
2. It’s much slower. With the placement of fingerprint sensors on Pixel phones it is totally natural to have the phone unlocked and open by the time the screen comes into view. With FaceID I don’t even start that process until then, and it’s a several step process: assuming the screen is already on (this works well) I have to look at the phone, wait a moment... then swipe up to actually unlock the phone. Facial recognition aside, the act of swiping up alone is way more work than fingerprinting into a Pixel phone.
3. The thing I like most about FaceID is checking notifications - I can simply look at the screen and Signal messages unlock, etc.
I’m convinced that most of the hate iPhone users have for fingerprint unlock relates to the placement of the sensor, and (never having used an iPhone fingerprint reader this is speculation) maybe it’s speed or reliability. The implementation on Pixel phones was really great and I’ll be sad to see it go.
On my Galaxy S9, I use both the face unlock and fingerprint reader all the time. I was just thinking this morning that face unlock is proving very useful in the autumn chill, as I can actually use my phone's touchscreen with thin gloves, but don't have to take them off to use the fingerprint reader.
Relying on the front camera to replace fingerprint readers is a compromise, and it makes the phone less valuable to me for a lot of every day use cases. I'm glad some other manufacturers make phones with fewer of those kinds compromises.
I'd miss it a lot, and it's one of the reasons I think I'll keep my 3XL for another year instead of upgrading to the Pixel 4.
Errr?
I just pick up my samsung phone and my finger naturally rests on the fingerprint sensor as I'm pulling it out, which instantly unlocks it in any conditions and the phone is ready to go by the time I'm looking at it.
Vs.
I have to tilt my iPhone up so it can see my face and make sure it's not blinded by the sun and then wait 500ms for it to think about whether I'm me or not.
Vs.
I get stopped at the border and they want warantless access to my iPhone. I say no. They just point it at me and unlock it.
Fingerprint ID is superior in every way.
1) Triggering the fingerprint sensor requires an active action, 'touch this sensor', versus Face ID (even with attention-detection enabled). This is important for law-enforcement. It is easier for law enforcement to get you to look at something that it is to compel you to unlock something.
See for instance https://www.wired.com/story/police-unlock-iphone-face-id-leg... Note that some courts have ruled that Face ID should have similar protections as Touch ID, but the issue is far from settled and is likely to end up in court in the future.
2) It's easier in mass-transit and POS scenarios to tap your phone while touching the fingerprint sensor. The flow for Face ID is much more convoluted -- bring the phone near the reader (which may be away from your face) to bring up the payment UI, then bring your phone to your face if the reader is faced away, double-click the home button...
3) During meetings, it's easy to sneak a glance at notifications (if your notifications are set to show only when authenticated) by touching your fingerprint sensor -- there's no need to bring your phone to your face and make it obvious you're checking your phone.
I don't mind Face ID, to be clear. But I always felt Touch ID was more unobtrusive.
That remains to be seen. I've seen several implementations of face unlock that can be unlocked with a video playing on a phone.
Edit: looks like I'm probably wrong on this one
Even cops can use it to unlock your phone without permission legally[1], but they can't compel you to use your fingerprint on the device.
Of course if you really care about security you won't use either. Historically single factor biometric sensors have historically proven to be weak indicators of identity.
[1]: https://www.wired.com/story/police-unlock-iphone-face-id-leg...
What makes you think that's what's going on here? You don't think Google did their own market and user research before making this thing?
I’m still using an iPhone 6s which has gotten its last major iOS update after owning the device for 5 years. It will continue getting security fixes for another year until iOS 14 is released.
iPhones last twice as long as Pixel devices, which is a big plus when you must have a secure phone.
Meanwhile, my mid-2011 Mac Mini was cut off from getting macOS updates after High Sierra last year. But because it allows the installation of other operating systems it still can dual-boot the latest Windows 10 and the latest Debian Bullseye just fine.
The only way for any general computing device to last is if it gives the user freedom to control the software that runs on the device. All iPhones suppress this freedom which means game over for longevity.
Note that the iPhone 6s debuted in 2015. Also, we don’t yet know that support will be dropped with iOS 14.
It has a fingerprint reader, a headphone jack (yes I use it -- particularly on flights which I unfortunately take a lot of), a 2-3 day battery for my use case, and a reasonable price. When you consider eg skipping the warranty because it's $400 not $700+, it's a great buy.
Also... standard cables (that aren't fragile as shit) and the high speed charger you want is included in the box, rather than used to juice accessory revenue!
Looking back on this Android journey I have to say that in addition the usual diatribe about what's wrong with Android, I've grown concerned about the disposable nature of Android devices. You effectively get 2 years of use out of an Android if you're lucky. And once their time is up, it's off to the landfill. That doesn't take into consideration all of the replacement devices (3 Nexus 6P's) they sent you due to the quality issues abound.
I see family and friends still using their iphone 5s!!! And even if you upgrade your iphone sooner, rest assured that that phone will end up the used phone market or overseas. When I bought the iphone 11, they offered me $23 for my Motorola. (btw, I was thinking oh well i'll just keep it and use it with my Amazon Alexa moto-mod, but it refuses to work without a SIM card in the phone. More E-waste!!!)
I honestly feel a little better owning an iphone, not just because it's around a better phone, but because my e-waste footprint will be a little less.
(sorry about the rant)
- Nothing on video.
- No details on the processor (or most hardware specs).
- Nothing on the forward-facing camera.
- Nothing on battery life.
Moreover, and this is purely a marketing-spin thing, the event had no energy. There were some super cool demos, and they were received with pure silence from the crowd. It was very weird.
Everything else right now is just iterative.
In contrast, Apple's A13 chip's contribution to extend battery power is incredibly impressive to me.
When you build an event like this, I think you put your best foot forward. Google did, it just wasn't terribly impressive IMO.
To give a hand size comparison, the length from the very bottom of my palm to the top of my index finger is nearly equal to the height of the pixel 3. My index finger is maybe .25" longer. I'm an average height adult woman (5'5”), with hands proportional to that. I can play a standard size guitar just fine (ok, some bar chords are hard), but I haven't been able to buy an ergonomically comfortable flagship Android device in years now.
Edit: a lot of sarcastic answers down there :D
Seriously, though, some problems just have one solution.
Look at Android phones prior to the iPhone and then post-iPhone. There are definitely more solutions to phone designs than just a black rectangle.
"²Not functional in Japan and may not be functional in other Pixel countries. Motion Sense is functional in the US, Canada, Singapore, Taiwan and most European countries."
"Check that you’re in a country where Motion Sense is approved. Currently, Motion Sense will work in the US, Canada, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, and most European countries. If you travel to a country where it’s not approved, it won’t work."
What's up with that? Is there any regulation against moving your hands in front of the phone?
The only thing I can think of is the "kind of" mandatory shutter noise when using the camera on Japanese phones, to avoid up-skirt photos and the like. An I say "kind of", because depending on who I've talked to, some say it's a mandatory law, some others say it's a good faith agreement between manufacturers.
Anyway, maybe, if the hand waving stuff is detected using the camera, might be problematic on some countries as in Japan.
2800 mAh
Ughh... why can't they make a phone with bigger battery?
XL model has a decent size battery but it is way to cumbersome to use as mobile device and 2800 mAh is barely enough to last day (not to mention degradation over time).
Is it that i am in a filter bobble? But most of my friends and family complains about low battery or agrees with me that they would love a phone that last more then a day.
Google had video showing how they could differentiate individual finger motion and motions like rolling 2 fingers together to adjust volume up and down.
What they're shipping with Pixel 4 seems to have exactly one gesture: swiping a few inches above the screen to skip songs back and forth or silence alarms and calls.
You know what else had this feature? The 2013 Moto X. And it didn't use a radar sensor, just a group of 4 light sensors, one at each corner of the face of the phone.
Granted, if what they demoed a while back is accurate, the radar chip is much more capable than a few light sensors, but what they're shipping and marketing is not that. Either they were not able to make the proof of concept work in a shipping device, or the final product is not as capable as it seemed.
Would have been nice to see a wide angle lens too. The radar thing feels gimmicky.
Also, if your image bit depth is high enough, you can create "virtual" multiple exposures from a single image and do exposure fusion. Google already do this with HDR+ on stills.
The bit depth stored from the sensor could be a lot higher than the current 8bits most mobile phones use for video, if you have full control of the ISP. Cinema cameras can process and store 12-16bit video (Red, Blackmagic, Arri).
Even Apple does this to some degree with their "extended dynamic range" video on newer iPhones, though the saved files are still 8bit.
In the German version of this announcement, the first thing written under the title is that you if you order soon enough, you'll get a free Google Nest Hub with the phone. Well, uhm, no, please don't.
Further down, Google praises itself with "Stets an deiner Seite: Google Assistant ...", which means "Always at your side: Google Assistant ...". This is just creepy to me now.
I'm astounded by how much my perspective of Google has changed since a couple of years ago. Their marketing is off-putting to me now.
The team showed an impressive amount of cool stuff back then, it's nice to see one of these projects shipping on a flagship product. There's more info here on how it's used: https://www.blog.google/products/pixel/new-features-pixel4/
EDIT: found the original presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpbWQbkl8_g . I think the touch sensitive cloth project also made it into a few products.
I'm also incredibly excited about the face unlocking feature -- I owned a Pixel Xs for about a week before returning it, and face unlock was my absolute favorite feature. It's very seamless especially compared to fingerprint unlock.
As an aside, Marc Levoy, who spoke at the Google event today is a Professor Emeritus at Stanford, and has a great series titled "Lectures on Digital Photography" available for free on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7HrM-fk_Rc
Appending a locale parameter to the url works well [1]
For example, think about computer releases. As someone who likes to build a PC and install my own operating system, I love how these two things are somewhat decoupled (albeit imperfectly.) So I was excited about individual component releases, of course the CPU and GPU in particular, not to mention the rapid advancement of storage technology! And I was happy to try out a whole new version of Windows. (I particularly like 2000 and 7.)
Computers, on the other hand - well I've all but ignored desktops and announcements about them my whole life. Laptops were more interesting, because I was excited when they started to have decent internal components, nice screens and usable battery life. (I've been less impressed with increasingly closed systems with fewer options for upgrades.)
So back to the point at hand? I'd like to think that new phones should be focused on performance, and in my dream world, decoupling from software. I don't want "new gadgets" to be a thing on a phone. If I want to use it a certain way, i.e. hand waving away my song tracks, I have to now rely on a specific manufacturer running a specific operating system on at least the minimum version. No real options there, though.
I'm still not sure "modular" can work for phones, or maybe it can but we're not there yet, or there hasn't been enough market success to push manufacturers to go that way. But even that feels mostly unnecessary. I haven't had any complaints about my phone hardware, except for batteries wearing out, and being difficult to replace. Cameras have been "good enough" for my needs for several years now. Storage and computing performance has been fine, too. (Of course, new features are compute-intensive and will require hardware to keep up.)
If I have a point, it's that this is a boring phone release to me, but I kind of wish all phone releases were boring at this point. I'm sure some of the imaginative features coming out will become important, but right now, I feel like I don't need them. What I would prefer would be an improvement in decoupling between phone hardware and software.
WTF. I don't want more EMR coming from a phone. I just want a phone. All this extra technology literally noone asked for adding to the price of a phone, same with fingerprint readers, same with face scan.
Ultra-privacy intruding phones.