All of us spent at least some time explaining our friends or family that quitting apps does not save battery life or that Microsoft and Apple are not aiming to steal your fingerprints. Any techie family member (or labeled as such) has difficulties explaining that many common misapprehensions are just myths surrounding Apple, and that’s all. Here are the main facts^
- Apple will never steal your face or fingerprint;
- Quitting apps will not save your battery;
- Apps and machine learning do not surface your secrets.
Let’s consider each point.
Fingerprints
When Touch and Face ID were first introduced by Apple, some people assumed that the company aimed to scoop and keep all the data for personal usage and that is untrue. Apple even does not have access to this information the data is available only within secure enclave so it actually never leaves your device. The info about your fingerprints or face are not sent to Apple and not included in backups as well as not stored anywhere else.
The same is with apps which are tracking facial processes (like Snapchat) for different effects these apps do not have access to data stored by Face ID. First of all, it has not been and will not be hacked. Your phone is as safe when using Face ID as when you used Touch ID.
Apps and Machine Learning
When coming to force app quitting in hope that it will save the battery… well, that does not work that way. Apple president of soft engineering confirmed it and assured that it would be useless. And finally, such terms as machine learning and artificial intelligence it is believed that they cause some misconceptions in Apple world. The company faced this challenge in October 2017 when it was claimed that iOS saved files and machine engineering could surface the secrets of your phone. It can be easily explained those apps which use machine learning have no access to data. Regardless of Core ML, applications will not find out dark secrets of your iPhone.
