iPhone X Form Factor and Security [u]

Perhaps. One solution is to turn off
the phone at LEO encounters

Over the past two days, a surprising number of friends and colleagues have asked for my opinion on the iPhone X. This new smartphone seems to have received a lot of attention.

While I love the new features, I'm concerned about the form factor. Initially, it seemed to be as big as the iPhone 6/7 Plus models, which is too big for me. (I've been using the iPhone 6 & 7.) 

It turns out I was wrong about the size. Compared to the iPhone 7, the iPhone X is about about one tenth of an inch higher and about 0.15" wider. So, it's slightly bigger than the iPhone 7. And, compared to the iPhone 7 Plus, the iPhone X is about half an inch shorter and quarter of inch narrower, making the X significantly smaller than the 7+. The beauty of the iPhone X is that the screen is more than a quarter of an inch larger than the screen on the iPhone Plus models (6, 7, and 8). That's a bigger screen on a smaller phone due to the X's edge-to-edge design.

So, the bottom line is I'm considering getting the iPhone X. 

Face ID

Instead of using Touch ID's fingerprint recognition feature for authentication, the iPhone X uses Face ID, which recognizes a person the same way humans do, by their face. Apple claims that Face ID is 20x more accurate than Touch ID, which is great. But, some people have raised alarms that law enforcement officers (LEOs) could take you into custody and simply unlock your phone by pointing the screen at your face. Could that really happen? Perhaps. But, I've seen alarmist headlines before ("Apple Crosses The Line With New iPhone Feature"). One way to protect against this is to simply not enable this feature for people who are deeply concerned. Another option, if Face ID is turned on, would be to simply turn off your phone before a LEO encounter (i.e. crossing international borders, etc). 

Each time the iPhone is turned on, the secure enclave, which processes your Touch ID or Face ID credentials, remains inactive until a person manually enters their PIN to decrypt this information. It appears, during Craig Federighi's demonstration of Face ID, that his demo phone had been restarted but not unlocked with the PIN, prior to his demo. This prevented Face ID from working. While that's the correct technical behavior, it happened at the wrong time – but he seemed to recover well during the demo.

Update: Apple's Craig Federighi details Face ID and how to quickly disable it.

The Disruptive Apple

This infographic captures how much Apple has grown. Like Apple, this image is big, so you'll have to click on it to see the details.

Best Buy's Geek Squad

Even though Geek Squad has been around for nearly 20 years I just had my first encounter with them last Thursday. The agent, Bo, was polite, but there were only two or three of them to handle the lunch time rush of customers which stretched the agents thin; and I don't think making an appointment was an option.

The problem was a finicky power adapter port on a Samsung Galaxy Note. The Geek Squad agent didn't need to troubleshoot the issue, he simply asked if it was possible to charge the phone. Since jiggling the cord made it possible to charge it under the right circumstances the agent said that he'd order a new phone since this issue was covered under the Best Buy extended coverage plan. But, which phone number was the plan under? A home phone, work phone, cell phone? Finding the coverage warranty took awhile since their database records the plans by phone number, not serial number. I asked the agent why they didn't put the plan under the device's serial number instead of the phone number and he pointed out that replacing the phone would change the serial number. Touché. So now I'm thinking that the extended warranty plan should be under both the serial number and phone number.

Once the extended warranty was found the agent pointed out that they do not transfer data from the old, defective phone, to the new phone which would arrive next week. Instead, the agent handed out a sheet of paper with instructions on how to back up the phone's data. Obviously, it's not our smartphones which are so important compared to the information on our phones. Consumers very rarely transfer data between phones so I expected this service to be offered by the Geek Squad. But, you can't have everything. Apple offers free data transfer services from PCs to Macs. I wonder if they do that for people switching from Android to iOS?

Smartphone Lock Feature

I was at a tech event, earlier this week, sitting next to a guy who pulled out his smart phone to read a text message. As I casually glanced over to see what kind of phone he had I could easily see him enter his four digit PIN. With touch screen phones, whether they have a keypad or you drag your finger across the numbers, it's very easy to see the PIN entered based on the position of the numbers.

This got me thinking... a simple solution to this problem would be to randomly display the numbers on the keypad. You'd still enter the same PIN, but, to a causal glancer, they'd not be able to figure out your PIN simply based on the position of the numbers you touch.