{"id":8060,"date":"2021-05-03T15:01:14","date_gmt":"2021-05-03T20:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tcn.tidbits.com\/?p=8540"},"modified":"2021-05-03T15:43:29","modified_gmt":"2021-05-03T20:43:29","slug":"upgrade-to-ios-14-5-and-watchos-7-4-to-unlock-face-id-iphones-with-your-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/upgrade-to-ios-14-5-and-watchos-7-4-to-unlock-face-id-iphones-with-your-watch\/","title":{"rendered":"Upgrade to iOS 14.5 and watchOS 7.4 to Unlock Face ID iPhones with Your Watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

You have to feel for Apple sometimes. The company\u2019s engineers put an astonishing amount of work into the hardware and software necessary for Face ID to recognize your face nearly instantly and unlock your iPhone or iPad. Regardless of whether you\u2019re wearing a hat and glasses. Even in the dark. It\u2019s one of those pieces of technology that\u2019s so advanced that it\u2019s indistinguishable from magic.<\/p>\n

But the one thing that stymies Face ID every time is also the most important factor in curbing the spread of the coronavirus: the humble face mask. We\u2019ve all been wearing masks for the past year, so if you have an iPhone X or later with Face ID, you\u2019ve undoubtedly been annoyed by having to tap in your passcode repeatedly while masked. Early in the pandemic, Apple tweaked iOS 13 so you could enter a passcode without waiting for Face ID to fail. That was a help, but with the just-released iOS 14.5, Apple has now made the problem go away entirely, at least if you have an Apple Watch.<\/p>\n

\"\"Here\u2019s how it works. Once you\u2019ve updated your Face ID\u2013enabled iPhone to iOS 14.5 and your Apple Watch Series 3 or later to watchOS 7.4, you can enable the Unlock with Apple Watch setting. From then on, if your mask prevents Face ID from unlocking your iPhone, iOS will check to see if your watch is nearby, on your wrist, protected by a passcode, and unlocked. If so, your iPhone unlocks immediately, just as though it had scanned your face successfully. Your Apple Watch also taps your wrist to alert you and give you the option of locking the iPhone again, just in case someone has surreptitiously snagged your iPhone and is using the feature to unlock it in your presence.<\/p>\n

To enable this feature, go to Settings > Face ID & Passcode on your iPhone, scroll down to Unlock with Apple Watch, and turn on the switch next to your Apple Watch. If you don\u2019t have a passcode enabled for your Apple Watch, turn that on in the Watch app, in My Watch > Passcode. (While you\u2019re on that screen, be sure to enable Unlock with iPhone too, since that prevents you from having to type the Apple Watch passcode in nearly all situations.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That\u2019s all there is to it\u2014it\u2019s brilliant! Apple undoubtedly put a great deal of thought into architecting this feature so it\u2019s easy to use without compromising the iPhone\u2019s security. If you haven\u2019t yet updated to iOS 14.5 and watchOS 7.4, we encourage you to do so right away to take advantage of this feature. And if you don\u2019t yet have an Apple Watch, this might be reason enough to get one.<\/p>\n

(Featured image by Uriel Mont<\/a> from Pexels<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You have to feel for Apple sometimes. The company\u2019s engineers put an astonishing amount of work into the hardware and software necessary for Face ID to recognize your face nearly instantly and unlock your iPhone or iPad. Regardless of whether you\u2019re wearing a hat and glasses. Even in the dark. It\u2019s one of those pieces […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,69,106,467,8,112,185,104],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-apple","category-apple-consulting-ct","category-apple-support-ct","category-apple-watch","category-iphone","category-mac-support-ct","category-mactech","category-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8063,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8060\/revisions\/8063"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}