Posted on October 1, 2018
Two weeks ago, I wrote about how I strongly dislike Apple’s Face ID; and although some in the blind community have agreed with my thoughts, there are also some who do not. They say “oh Face ID is just fine and it’s accessible,” etc. Accessible for sure, but not efficient; and in some cases totally breaks people’s workflows.
Because accessibility has lacked efficiency in many ways, some bigger than others over the years, blind people have often collectively accepted that they have to deal with it. There might be an app that is almost accessible except 1 screen so blind users memorize the screen and don’t complain. Then there are environments like amateur or ham radio, where the equipment isn’t really accessible at all, or the accessible versions are often considerably more expensive, (though things are improving) so blind people write and share guides to help them get around the problems. I respect the people who wrote those guides, and appreciated them many times, and even wrote a few myself, but the question needs to be asked: why are we just rolling over as a community and accepting this? Why aren’t we pushing back harder and finding polite and respectful ways to ask for or joining in to help create more accessible and/or even more efficient solutions.
With some pretext, I now return to the Face ID situation. To date, Twitter is the most accessible and efficient social media for blind users, and it is there will you will find them discussing anything and everything they find important. As we have had a year with Apple’s Face ID, there have been tweets among the blind community about it, though I find most of them just saying things like, ye it’s ok, I got used to it; or even a few of it’s amazing works great. Santiago’s tweets shared here I think encompass much of this mentality.
Santiago – @kevinrj There are blind people that say that faceID is an accessibility issue, but I don’t feel like it is. Unlocking your phone with touchID in your pocket isn’t an accessibility feature. It’s simply a convenience. A nice one at that, but not necessary.
Santiago – @kevinrj Well, that convenience certainly goes away, and I honestly wish I could have it back sometimes. Could FaceID improve? Certainly, but I think everyone experiences similar issues with it. Even sighted people.
Santiago – @kevinrj You do also have the security issue with it. When it comes to sighted people, the phone actually looks for your attention in order to unlock. It automatically turns it off if you’re using VoiceOver. I have a work-around, but again… not very convenient.
Santiago – @kevinrj I’m all about efficiency. Heck, I sometimes upgrade my products, because they slow down after years and affect that greatly, but I, a totally blind person, have efficiently used my iPhone X for almost a year now. Is there a learning curve? Yes. But it’s accessible.
Yes, as I said earlier, it’s accessible, but that doesn’t mean efficient. Could I take a bus from New York to Las Angeles? Sure, it’s totally accessible, and would even be way cheaper, but if I had to do it every 2 months for my job I would not like wasting up to a week each time I could save by flying. For a blind person, Face ID is very much like that; even though some are making it work or even enjoying it, some also enjoy long bus rides; I haven’t found that from my own personal experiences, but I think it has something to do with the scenery.
Sina Bahram has an ABD in PHD in computer science and is probably the most advanced computer user in the blind community who I know of. Last week I found a thread on Twitter with him and a few other people about why Face ID is a step back for blind accessibility. These are not just opinions, but hard facts that should be taken seriously.
In this thread, screen curtain is mentioned, but is mostly only called curtain, which I realized may be confusing to those who don’t know about it. Screen curtain is an amazing VoiceOver feature that along with bringing added security and privacy to VoiceOver users on Apple products can definitely also save battery life.
Sina Bahram – Wow, I was not expecting to do this, but I’m returning the iPhone 10S. I cannot believe what an atrocious experience this is now. FaceID is nowhere near as efficient or accessible as fingerprint sensor. Not having a home button is ridiculous. No more immediacy of access. #a11y
James Teh – @SinaBahram I suspect my feeling will be the same. Some people seem to cope okay, but I just can’t see how face ID could be more efficient for us. And my understanding is you have to disable the gaze stuff, which means we reduce security due to disability, but I might be misunderstanding.
Michiel Bijl – @jcsteh @SinaBahram I’d be curious to know how that is measured. If it’s done by detecting whether your eyes are pointed at the phone with eyelids open—it might not be a problem for everyone.
Of course you can always use the passcode but that’s a major step back from Touch ID.
Michiel Bijl – @SinaBahram The interaction to go home with VoiceOver is weird. I mess that up rather regularly. Any tips?
James Teh – @MichielBijl @SinaBahram Also, the whole idea of having to actually pick up my phone and bring it to my face just to unlock it… so many kinds of bleh. The number of times I just quickly look at my phone with one hand while it sits on my desk…
Julianna Rowsell – @SinaBahram A friend of my is having similar feelings. His physical access disability doesn’t allow him to effectively use it. The angles to his face are wrong and such so the recognition software doesn’t authenticate. – Retweeted by SinaBahram
Sina Bahram – @jcsteh @MichielBijl Exactly. This is just simply unacceptable. I really hope that some advocates inside of Apple bothered trying to speak up. It’s just not like them, sir. There are so many use cases this completely destroys.
Sina Bahram – @MichielBijl Yes, the tip is to get another phone. I’m not being sarcastic. I just boxed mine up. I am an expert in this topic and the most power user I have encountered, not bragging just facts, and this is unusable. So, I’m done. I’ll try to motivate some internal Apple convos, but no idea.
Sina Bahram – @MichielBijl @jcsteh I, plus its default now if it detects VO running, have turned off attention requirements. That’s not the FaceID issue here. The issue is that it doesn’t work in the dark with curtain on and it requires your face instead of your hand that’s already touching the device.
Sina Bahram – @jcsteh You are absolutely not misunderstanding. You are reducing security because of disability. Welcome to every X phone from original to the S and Max. Other concerns make this unusable, though.
James Teh – @SinaBahram @MichielBijl Oh… I didn’t think of that, and that’s super frustrating. So I’d have to turn off curtain to unlock my phone or go turn on a light? How utterly ridiculous.
Sina Bahram – @jcsteh @MichielBijl Yup, I can confirm that. I turn off curtain, and oh look, it’s magically like 10X more accurate, and turn it back on … pin code it is!
Tomi 🇭🇺 – @SinaBahram wait, doesn’t work in the dark with curtain on? Is this a thing? Does having screen curtain change this? I thought infra-red works with low or no light anyway since it’s using its own infra-red beams, so most people I read about using it said it works at night /in dark.
Sina Bahram – @tomi91 Everyone assumes infra-red means works in dark. This is not true. Infra-red buys you depth sensing independent of (visible) light. That barely matters since gaze is disabled by most VO users. Face ID still needs (visible) light in addition to depth info.
Tomi 🇭🇺 – @SinaBahram oh that’s interesting. I wonder if people re-enable attention mode if it changes. But then again some people can’t even get their eyes straight (like me) so it’d probably just fail over and over. Man I’m really glad about my 8 now, thanks for that hope. lol
Sina Bahram – @tomi91 That feature is automatically turned off for VO users, so the eyes thing is not an issue itself, though it negatively impacts everything from lack of full messages on lock screen to everything else.
I wish Apple had an iPhone pro line, kind of like their iPad pros. Face ID would be a great feature on those phones, but then instead of an iPhone Xr they could have what the iPhone 9 should have been, still an a12 processor but maybe a slightly lower quality camera, a smaller screen, and also still a home button.
There are still people who would like a smaller phone. There are even still some sighted people who are not obsessed with the latest perfections in screen technology, or don’t even care if they have the best camera. There are even some sighted people who would still prefer Touch over Face ID, even Alex Lindsay, who is one of the most visually oriented people I know of, said on MacBreak Weekly recently, that he personally prefers Touch ID but thinks phones should actually have both.
Accessibility Insights 