iOS 14.5 will provide a great excuse to buy an Apple Watch: mask support for Face ID
You’ll soon be able to unlock your iPhone with Face ID while wearing a mask
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At a time when everyone is wearing a mask, Face ID has become a problem for iPhone users – they’re now constantly needing to enter their passcode to unlock their phones. There have beenreportsthat theiPhone 13range will get in-screen fingerprint sensors, but there’s no need to wait (or upgrade).
Appleis trying to solve this problem right now by adding a feature to the upcoming iOS 14.5 update that should allow iPhone owners to use Face ID while wearing a mask. This next instalment of Apple’s mobileoperating systemis now in developer beta and will be rolled out publicly in the coming weeks.
While this is excellent news for iPhone users, there is one major caveat – you will need to be anApple Watchusers as well.
As first reported byPocket-lint, iOS 14.5 will use your Apple Watch to authenticate your identity and unlock your phone – a feature that already exists on macOS.
If your Apple Watch is already unlocked, then lifting your iPhone to wake as you would for Face ID will produce a haptic feedback on your wrist to let you know your phone has been unlocked successfully.
This means that Face ID will work despite low or no facial recognition because the paired Watch has already been authenticated. This shortcut, though, will only work for unlocking an iPhone and will not work for any other action that relies on Face ID, like authenticating purchases for Apple Pay or App Store purchases.
iOS 14.5 will also bring a major privacy feature calledApp Tracking Transparencywhich will require apps to get user permission before tracking your activity and data across apps and websites. Updates to Siri and support forPS5andXbox Series Xcontrollers are also incoming.
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While she’s happiest with a camera in her hand, Sharmishta’s main priority is being TechRadar’s APAC Managing Editor, looking after the day-to-day functioning of the Australian, New Zealand and Singapore editions of the site, steering everything from news and reviews to ecommerce content like deals and coupon codes. While she loves reviewing cameras and lenses when she can, she’s also an avid reader and has become quite the expert on ereaders and E Ink writing tablets, having appeared on Singaporean radio to talk about these underrated devices. Other than her duties at TechRadar, she’s also the Managing Editor of the Australian edition of Digital Camera World, and writes for Tom’s Guide and T3.
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