How To Make Touch ID More Reliable [iOS Tips]

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touchid

Photo: Apple

If you’re one of the millions of people who went out and got themselves an iPhone 5s recently, you might notice that sometimes Touch ID doesn’t work on the first try. While most people haven’t had an issue with the new biometric fingerprint scanner, some have.

Luckily, there’s a pretty straightforward way to make it much more reliable.

According to TUAW, the trick here is to scan your fingerprint into Touch ID five times. The steps to scan your fingerprint are over at apple.com, and are as follows:

Use these steps to enroll your fingerprint:

  • Ensure that the Home button and your finger are clean and dry.
  • Hold the iPhone as you normally would when touching the Home button.
  • Touch your finger to the Home button and hold it there until you feel a quick vibration or until you are asked to lift your finger.
  • Tip: Don’t press the button, only touch it lightly.
  • Continue to touch and lift your finger slowly, making small adjustments to the position of your finger each time.
  • Once the initial scanning is complete, you’ll be asked to adjust your grip to capture the edges of your fingerprint.
  • Hold the phone as you normally would when unlocking it and touch the adjacent outer areas of your fingertip, instead of the center portion you initially scanned.

So, instead of doing this just once, go ahead and do this five separate times with the same finger. This will use up all available slots in Touch ID, but it’s good way to get some more solid reliability for your fingerprint unlock of your iPhone 5s.

Source: TUAW

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