Like many, I have all sorts of questions about the face recognition. How secure/reliable is it compared to a fingerprint sensor? Could someone sculpt a simulacrum of me that could unlock the phone, more easily than they could sculpt a fingerprint? My guess is that it'll be harder to fake a face than to fake a fingerprint.

If it's actually more secure than a fingerprint sensor, then I think it's very cool and very forward-thinking. As opposed to the implication that Apple simply couldn't source the necessary components for an on-the-touchscreen fingerprint sensor and fell back to face recognition at the last minute. From what I'm seeing, that's not the case, based on how sophisticated the system is.

I wonder if face recognition will actually turn out better for privacy. For example, if you are unconscious, someone could unlock your phone by placing your finger on it, but face recognition won't work if your eyes are closed. You could refuse to unlock your phone for someone simply by closing one or both eyes (and if they pry your eyes open, their hands would be in the way, thwarting the recognition).

There's more interesting discussion in the verge article, but I'm fascinated that someone is going to try sculpting a fake face to thwart it and post their results on youtube. Looking forward to that amusement. The verge article also points out that face recognition systems are historically racially biased, so I'm curious how that turns out in the long run. It's a hard problem to solve and I'm really interested if Apple successfully did.