Published in Mobiles

Apple’s iPhone X has difficulty with Chinese

by on15 December 2017


You all look the same to me

Apple’s comedy facial recognition system on its overpriced iPhone X appears to have a few difficulties telling Chinese apart.

A Chinese woman has been offered a refund on her iPhone X after she discovered that her colleague could unlock the device Face ID.

For those who came in late, Apple through its Tame Apple Press, has been telling the world that its Face ID is the "most advanced" it has ever created. To be fair this is not a particularly high bar to jump over. It is a bit like me saying this is the nicest live wasp I have eaten. But Apple thinks that the probability that a random person could successfully use it to unlock your smartphone is approximately 1 in 1,000,000, versus 1 in 50,000 for Touch ID.

The Chinese woman known only as Yan, told the Jiangsu Broadcasting Corp this week that her co-worker was able to unlock her iPhone X using the face-scanning tech despite having reconfigured the facial recognition settings multiple times.

Yan called Apple to report the issue where staff reassured her that it was "impossible" because it said so in the Apple Press release, so she rushed to the nearest store Apple store to demonstrate the glitch to employees.

There, South China Morning Post reports, Apple staffers found that the women were able to unlock the iPhone X no matter whose face was set as the owner.

Apple thought that there must be something wrong with the phone so gave Yan a refund, but she encountered the same problem with her second iPhone X.

This latest Face ID glitch comes just weeks after it was revealed that a 10-year-old in the US has been able to access his mum's phone using the supposedly secure face-scanning tech.

China is a key market for Apple but if its iPhone X has problems with Chinese faces this problem could get worse.

Apple has had a few problems with its fanboys not turning on the facial recognition system because they are frightened the phone will not recognise them. It has even released a video of a hipster who was recognised by his phone even after shaving off his beard.

Last modified on 15 December 2017
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