Q: Touch ID being Erratic

TID on my 2nd iphone 5s had deteriorated to only a 3 hour period before I had to reinstall my finger, so I returned it to the Apple Store on Tuesday. Genius Bar personnel were very understanding about this problem and gave me no problems with replacing my phone, but  it is inconvenient in restoring the phone from i cloud.  The 3rd Phone worked well for about a day and a half but started failing completely today. Now TID works about once in 5 tries or not at all.  It sure seems as others have stated that this is a software problem, as how could TID failures be occuring on 3 separate phones?  Sure would be great if Apple would look into this problem!! 

I am sooo glad that a few of you are now contacting Apple about your phones directly.  I did once on the phone for the first phone and once a couple of days ago for a two session chat over about 5 hours all told.  The first phone I was told it was definitely a hardware problem, not a S/W one so they sent me a new phone.  The second failed after a day or so so I told the person, who phoned to check on the new phone this, and that I was going to return it to my seller under their warranty. But, I didn't.  I figured until someone on this discussion had found the solution or Apple announced a fix it was just a waste of my time.  Then I read on here about the possiblity that the old phone (before 5S became available) maybe had a corrupt backup to iTunes where most of us backed up the old phones to put on our new phones so we didn't lose any info.  I backed up my iPhone 4 in iTunes and then put the backup on my first 5S and then backed it up and restored my 2nd 5S from a backup of my first 5S.  So if the backup of the iPhone 4 was corrupt I had passed it along.  So I put forth this theory to Apple so they decided to set my phone up as a new phone.  Unfortunately the first guy that decided to do that got stuck after I set it up and never got back things like apps asnd contacts and he couldn't get it in recovery mode with iTunes so gave up and passed along my problem to another who phoned me and we completed the job.  My phone has been working great ever since, exactly as Apple advertised.  I almost feel I should touch wood (in fact I just did).  The phone has never worked so seamlessly.  I click to wake the phone up and it goes right in.  I hope this is finally the answer.  But in case it isn't at least Apple is maybe aware there is a problem as I told all advisors I'd talked to that they need to look on this discussion board.  They told me Apple doesn't follow it.  They were definitely interested when I said not all people on the discussion board were in the US but I knew of at least two who were in different countries so they better read it.  They told me they made notes about that. I think the only way Apple is going to acknowledge this problem is if they get a lot of us phoning them to get them to fix our phones,  Tell them what each of us has done, what hasn't worked and even what has worked for awhile.  I definitely think that when you alternate between thumb prints to make one successful scan of a fingerprint something is definitely wrong,  In the first place you shouldn't be able to do this and in the second place this is the only print that lasted 3 days, longer than the regular fingerprint scan!!  I'm sure this means security isn't as strong as they would like to believe.  I think at this point we all need to get on our phones (landlines) and call for a chat with them.  The chat line is on this apple site I believe so poke around till you find where the apple chat is.  You get to speak to them right away as opposed to sending an email and waiting.  It is open 24 hrs. and they stay on the line till you are satisfied that they have done all they can.  I have a call scheduled for Monday to talk to the last advisor who wants to check out how the phone is now performing.  Good luck to you all and I hope with our hounding them Apple can fix each of our phones or else decide they need a software update to fix it.

I followed Jo Fo's example and submitted my feedback to apple.  Click on his link to go there is you would like to contribute.  This is what I sent them:

"Touch ID has been failing me consistently after a few hours on two phones now.  I contacted Apple Chat and, after reporting this, said that on your Apple Community Support forum one poster put forth the theory that if I backed up my old iPhone 4 to iTunes to put the info on my new phone and then used a backup of that phone to do my latest phone I was just passing the possible corrupt iPhone 4 backup along.  The chat people set my phone up as a new phone and for two days now it has been working seamlessly as it was advertised to do.  I hope this is the answer but if it isn't I am looking to Apple for a S/W fix.  Please somebody read the forum discussion on this as more and more people are reporting this problem, even from at least 3 countries now, Canada, US and UK. "

They claim to read this feedback but do not get back to you but it is better than posting on here and them not reading it at all.  At least Apple will "get" that there is a problem.  Please, all of you, for your next post, please go to the feedback page and tell Apple about it.  At least they will know we have this problem!!

After reading the thread i think this is a software issue.

Any developer here who tested 7.1 beta 3 and is this issue not fixed in the update?

Please reply

For what its worth I have just submitted feedback.

I've now currently switched off the security on my 5s so that I don't have to keep putting in the four digit code, which isn't ideal. I may look at resetting the phone next week up from new, but will only do this if being talked through on the landline by an Apple expert. If that fails I will be looking at getting my sixth 5s!

The intriguing thing about all this is why do the phones apparently work for some but not others?

I still think there are many more 5s devices with this issue than we know about and that Apple are trying to keep a lid on it to avoid an extremelly embarrassing situation that could affect their business credibility. Its not so much it doesn't work as advertised but that they've allowed it to be released into the public without it being tested properly in the field.

Certainly it has blown any faith I have in the mighty Apple - its my first experience of Apple and I'm not impressed. I'm even thinking of contacting a BBC investigative programme here in the UK called Watchdog to see if they are interested in taking up the case.

Thats good. I actually lost faith from apple since the day i am using 5s. My iphone 4s was much better than this.

Its not only the touch id issue with my 5s but more than that like stuttering of animations, loose power button, double click sound in the home button and many more. I feel like throwing away this piece of ****.

Redrolling I think that reporting it to Watchdog may be the best thing you can do to get this issue out in the open, especially as it isn't in the US and proves that other countries where this phone was released are have the same issue!!

RedRolling

I think Anne Robinson would have a field day with this issue.

Let's be fair these phones are very expensive and should give us better service than this.

Go for it!

7.1B3 = not fixed/no change in functionality

IS apple replacing the iphones which have the touch id issues?

IF ios 7.1 dint fix this then whats the solution now?

I Mean i feel like i wasted 850$ on a piece of white trash :@

I do feel your pain but the phone is made up of more than just TID.  I agree with you and I had a feeling that this was going to happen, especially when there were reports last year that the tight constraint of 5s' were due to TID low yield rates.  Keep in mind that most people don't use screen lock passcodes and thus will never use TID.  Only those of us that use passcodes will get the issue and only if the sensors are in that "just acceptable" approved copies.  Hopefully the blogosphere will report 7.1B4 makes improvements to TID but not holding my breath. 

The Touch ID fingerprint sensor was reported to be the primary factor contributing to very tight supplies of the iPhone 5s at its launch last September, with low yield rates at packaging firm Xintec and iOS 7-sensor integration slowing production. With several of those issues now ironed out and TSMC able to get an earlier start on sensor production for the next-generation iPhone, that bottleneck on launch supplies appears likely to be solved.

Well, here's what may prove to be a a very intriguing new piece to this frustrating puzzle! Very curious to hear if others can concur with what I've discovered. But first, a bit of background:

I've been following this thread since early November, and have been using the Joe Fo method of registration for my right thumb only. I still see deterioration in recognition after several days, and finally have to re-register again, but this has been far better than any other method.

Recently, I read about a method here for improving deteriorating recognition--i.e., when the recognized area of the thumb starts getting smaller--without having to delete and re-register, and it has worked really well so far. Simply go into the Touch ID settings, touch the registered finger to the sensor, and wait for "Fingerprint 1" to be briefly highlighted. I do this a few times, and it seems to restore recognition as if I had just re-registered. BUT... that's only part of the story...

Here's what else I've discovered: whenever I go into Touch ID settings and touch my registered finger to the sensor, it ALWAYS recognizes it... always, 100%, even after I've been having trouble with deteriorating recognition. You can tell it recognizes the print because "Fingerprint 1" becomes highlighted. And I have done this right after a bout of the sensor refusing to recognize my print. Even stranger, it seems very forgiving of how/where I place my thumb on the sensor. In short, THIS is how the sensor should be working in actual use, but doesn't...

So, my hypothesis: the sensor reads my print MUCH better--with no failures, in fact--when I'm in Touch ID settings than it does at other times. This would certainly bolster the argument that this a software issue. Please give this a try and post your results.

BRo this thing works for me as well. Atleast now i dont have to re register my fingerprint again n again but yea i do have to go to settings and tap my registered finger after every hour as TID stops working in an hour or so

So you don't CARE if the camera is phenomenal? You don't care about the amazing panorama stitching, the phenomenal video quality, the recording sound quality, the image stabilization, the phenomenal phone sound quality, where speaker phone sounds pretty much as good as the ear phone to both parties? The the earbuds they gave you with the phone that sound about 98% as good as my $200.00 AKG studio headphones? You don't CARE about the 64 bit processor (which hasn't even been implemented yet....just WAIT), which ALL the other phone companies are now terrified of and are scrambling to try to get one out (quote, from the head of Google phones - 'Yeah, Apple really kicked everyone in the NUTS with that one!'). The NEXT batch of software, where they implement 64 bit processing, is going to be MINDBLOWING. It is already the best performing cellpohone on the market, but the performance will go through the ROOF when they implement that. So you don't care about that, or the million other things they got SO right with the iPhone 5S, you ONLY care about the fingerprint recognition? Bizarre. Do you even OWN one of these things, or are you just an internet/Samsung/Android anti-Apple troll?

It is a SOFTWARE issue, likely not even caused by Apple software. It could be that we all have, I don't know, 'Diner Dash' on our phone for our kids which is what's causing all the problems with TID. Who knows. I do know, in my now 16+ year history of using Apple computers exclusively, they ALWAYS fix it, eventually. If this were Windoze, we'd truly be on our own. If it were easy, or dangerous, it would already be fixed. Rest assured, they're working on it. They ALWAYS do.

And if the guy above hates his useless piece of 'white trash' so much, I'll buy you a nice Samsung knock-off and you can give that one to me. Enjoy your wonderful Android experience - they are SO Much better. I know millions aren't, which is why they're switching in droves.

Cheers,

Cameron

I can't mine to even recognize the print. Could you be a little more specific in your instructions? So I go to Settings - General - touchID and Passcode - enter the number -  then down to Touch ID, and on the screen with the red fingerprint on top, I touch the sensor, and the registered fingerprint should HIGHLIGHT? I left my finger on there for over a minute, and nothing. How long should it take? Maybe I waited too long - it's been four or five days since I registered it.

Thanks,

Cameron