I hate Face ID

My first several iPhones were without any passwords. I had nothing interesting or valuable in them to warrant the extra hassle of entering a passcode every time I needed to use them. But with time I got some more sensitive stuff and with the iPhone 6 Plus, I started to use the fingerprint sensor to unlock it.

And to most degree, it works just fine. Sure sometimes it didn’t work when I had wet fingers or when I positioned my finger weirdly. But this happened quite rarely and in general, it was a positive experience. I meant that the trouble of having to do extra stuff was way less than having a secured phone.

But a lot of changed with I got a new iPhone 16. The first and most annoying problem is that the iPhone looks exactly the same when it lying on the table and switched off. It is really hard to see where is the top and where is the bottom.

I needed to look carefully to figure out where is top was and where is bottom. It is much easier to power it on and just see but it takes more time. With my iPhone 8 Plus I know where is top, and when is at the bottom, and it saved me a fraction of the time I need to unlock it. It is definitely not the end of the world it is just slightly annoying because it happens all the time.

The next thing, switching to a different application is very annoying.  Let me explain what I mean. I mostly use my phone to read some stuff from it and play a single game. And to play this game I need to rotate the phone 90 degrees to portrait mode.

Very often I power my phone off when game when it is active. Then I power my phone on but now I need a different application. But this line which I need to swipe the app off is now on the side of my phone. It is not easy to use it because I have a case that is slightly above the screen and this line is closer to the edge of the on the side than on the bottom of my phone.  And the case must be slightly above the screen to protect the screen if I drop my phone.

On the iPhone 8, I just press the home button and I can activate the other application. On the iPhone 16, I had to do several swipes until I finally got it. It annoys me every single day a few times per day.

And the same problem occurs when I play the game and need to switch to the other side. Now the phone is rotated 90 is is slightly more convenient but I still need a few tries before I’m able to do it.

Another related problem is when I want to kill my game. Sometimes my game needs to restart and on iPhone 8 I quickly press the Home button twice and swipe the app off to kill it. On the iPhone 16, it requires a lot of precise movements to switch the phone into this mode.

Firstly I need to do a short swipe for the phone to show that line. Then I need to do another short swipe to turn that line from gray into white color. Then I need careful half swipe to my the game into the center of the screen. And only then I can kill it. It is so much longer than with the Home button. Sometimes it takes close to a minute because I cannot do it on the first or second try.

Sometimes Face ID does not work at all at night and I had to enter the passcode. Sometimes I take the phone the way that part of my hand covers the top of my phone and it cannot unlock.

Sometimes there is a long delay before Face ID will recognize my face. I very rarely needed to enter the passcode on the iPhone 8 but on the iPhone 16, I feel like I had to enter in the 30% of all my attempts to unlock it. It is definitely less than 30% but it feels like I had to do it quite often.

So for me with the iPhone 16 the additional security of my phone feels way more annoying than for the iPhone 8. Every day I had one of these situations and quite often multiple times per day.

But is the removal of the Home button worth it? To me, it is not. Extra space does not make a big difference and most of the games do not use this space properly anyway. It should be better for reading to be honest I didn’t feel any difference when I switched from the iPhone 8. But I definitely can see less on top of my screen compared to the iPhone 8.

Overall, I feel that I actually get less space than on the iPhone 8 and not more. I perfectly understand that objectively it is not correct but subjectively for me, it feels like a step back and not a step forward.

I would gladly buy the phone without the front camera but with the Home button. I will have more real estate on the top of my phone, the phone will stop being symmetrical. Moreover, finally, I can easily unlock it when it is on the wireless charger because now I have to enter the passcode or take my phone off charger.

I hope it helps someone.