These past few weeks and even months haven't been favorable for Apple as far as customer reviews for its software glitches go. After discreetly addressing the microphone problem in iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, Apple is now doing the same for another serious problem in the iPhone X, which was labeled the world's best-selling smartphone in Q1 2018.
Apple is addressing a problem with the iPhone X's Face ID - the best facial recognition technology in smartphones - where users would get an error saying "Face ID is not available, try again later." But what's causing the problem is creating confusion among users.
Regardless, Apple has a fix and it has advised all Authorized Service Providers on how to tackle the problem. According to a support document addressing the service providers obtained by 9to5Mac, Apple wants its technicians to run diagnostics to find a problem with the Face ID and see if the issue can be resolved with a rear camera repair.
If so, the technician is advised to replace the whole faulty unit for a new one "in order to provide the best customer experience."
But if the relationship between the faulty rear camera and issue with the Face ID doesn't make sense, several user complaints have pointed out that for some reason both components fail at the same time. Explaining the complexity of the iPhone X setup, a Genius Bar technician explained to an iPhone X user on how the rear camera and Face ID's True Depth camera are connected.
"I was talking to the Genius Bar guy and he said that the cameras are connected. The lenses differ on what they do. The wide angle did the ones that worked and is connected to the front-facing camera. The telephoto is connected to the true depth and was not working," an iPhone X user said, according to 9to5Mac.
Even though Apple addressed the problem internally, there's no public acknowledgment to the issue that has lurked around for months. Shortly after the iPhone X's release, a user on Reddit had shared his experience with the rear camera and Face ID failing simultaneously.
The Reddit post highlighted that the rear camera's panorama, slow-mo and time-lapse worked while the rest of the features failed to respond. The front camera also worked in the affected device but the Face ID hadn't been working. There was no immediate solution to the problem at the time, but Apple's resolution should certainly bring some relief to affected users.
