iOS 12 Beta Supports Face ID Rescans With Swipe Up Gesture on iPhone X

As more users sign onto the first beta for Apple's iOS 12, new discoveries are quickly being made, with the latest centering upon a simple but highly useful new gesture for iPhone X owners.

Currently, when you hold up the iPhone X and Face ID fails, you either have to lower it and raise it again, or press the side button to put the iPhone to sleep and wake it up through another side button press or tapping the display. You can also tap "Cancel" after the failure then swipe up to start over. All of these methods will reactivate a Face ID scan.

Image via shakil-ali on Reddit

As discovered by Redditor shakil-ali, Apple has provided a slightly simpler way to rescan your face in the iOS 12 beta: now when the biometric security feature fails multiple times you can swipe up from the bottom of the iPhone X to get Face ID to scan again, without having to tap or press another button first. This should help to alleviate a small but sometimes frustrating part of unlocking the iPhone X with Face ID.

In regards to other hidden features of iOS 12, we have collected a bunch in a tidbits roundup posted yesterday. These include setting up an "alternate appearance" for Face ID, a new QR code scanner in Control Center, a revamped Battery Usage section in settings, and more.

As a whole, Apple announced iOS 12 with a focus on user privacy and digital health, and when the update launches in the fall iPhone and iPad owners will be able to keep track of everything they do on their devices with features like "Screen Time" in Settings.

Related Forums: iPhone, iOS 12

Top Rated Comments

penajmz

69 months ago

Just tried this and it works. A really nice fix for an annoyance I had some times.

Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)

Neryus

Amazing. I never knew you could do this. Judging from comments, a lot of other people didn’t know either.

It‘s just not true. You need to either move the phone to a different direction or tap cancel and reswipe.

People that are saying they do this in iOS 11 are lying or not understanding the issue correctly.

Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)

johnyslats

Is this actually new? Have I imagined it or have you been able to do this for a while on iOS 11. Since upgraded to the beta so can’t check

jamiebrown6

Article is wrong or misleading. The prompt might be new but since iOS 11 you just swipe up to rescan.

Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)

It's definitely news.

The prompt to swipe up for Face ID is undoubtedly new, but I'm convinced you could actually swipe up on the enter passcode screen to re-initiate a Face ID scan on iOS 11.

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)

joshuamj

It’s accurate! If FaceID fails once on iOS 11, you can swipe up to retry. But if it fails twice and the keypad appears, you’re forced to type your passcode (or lock and unlock to try again. See screenshot.) iOS 12 allows you to swipe up when the keypad is shown.