Privacy and usability problems with the iPhone 6s? You’re using it wrong
Over the past couple of days I’ve read two interesting iPhone 6s stories from my colleagues. Brian Fagioli says Apple’s Live Photos has a big privacy issue, while Joe Wilcox says the way the Nexus 6P’s fingerprint scanner works is superior to that of the Touch ID scanner on the iPhone 6s.
With respect to both writers, they are wrong. The problems they refer to with the iPhone 6s aren’t problems of Apple’s making, they are user errors, pure and simple.
Brian says, with Live Photos there’s the danger of accidentally recording something you shouldn’t. He cites capturing some bank account info without realizing, and later recording a shot of himself semi-naked in the mirror. He took the picture he wanted, then lowered the camera forgetting Live Photos was recording 1.5 seconds before and after the shot.
He says Apple should "Figure out some sort of detection, so that random arm movement is not captured". This is something that’s already being worked on, and should appear in the next iOS 9 update. But let’s be honest here. Use Live Photos correctly, and you won’t record bank details or semi-nude shots.
If you don’t know how to use your phone correctly, learn. It’s not, by any stretch of the imagination, a privacy issue -- big or small. NoBias summed the story up for me in the comments:
"I have discovered a rather big privacy issue in practice"
Correction you discovered how it works.
If you don’t want to record yourself wearing a towel in the mirror, don’t take a photo while standing wearing only a towel in front of the mirror. If you don’t want to record bank details, don’t point your camera at them. You are responsible for what you record with your phone, whether on purpose or by accident. It’s not Apple’s fault if you use a feature incorrectly, it’s your fault.
In the other article, in which Joe Wilcox talks about his preference for Nexus 6P over iPhone 6s Plus, he says this:
[...]the killer function I couldn't part with: the fingerprint reader on the back of the phone. Picking up the device and placing my forefinger on the circular indentation wakes and unlocks the 6P. Wow-way is right! The mechanism beats the Hell out of Apple's two-handed jimmy from the Home button.
This truly has me scratching my head. "Apple's two-handed jimmy from the Home button"? I pick up my iPhone 6s with one hand, and my thumb automatically brushes against the Home button and bam, my phone is unlocked. It’s so fast I never even see notifications anymore.
With a 6s Plus, the unlocking is exactly the same for me (I’ve tried it). I don’t know if Joe is using a finger, rather than a thumb, to unlock the iPhone, or he has incredibly small hands, but either way unlocking the iPhone 6s couldn’t possibly be more intuitive. Certainly I prefer it to tapping a finger round the rear of the phone.
Joe might prefer the Nexus 6P to the iPhone 6s Plus, and that’s his prerogative, but if he can’t unlock Apple’s phone immediately, and one handedly, then he’s obviously doing something weird when he picks it up.
So two Apple stories from colleagues, both very different but with one thing in common -- they talk about issues that really aren’t issues at all, but come down to people not being able to use their phones correctly.
Yes, Apple could make Live Photos more newbie-proof, and move the fingerprint scanner to elsewhere on the phone, but really doing so would be completely unnecessary. Just use the phone as intended, and everything will be good. If you’ve got a problem with how it works, maybe -- just maybe -- the problem isn’t with the phone, it’s with how you’re using it.
Photo Credit: Denis Belyaevskiy/Shutterstock