HOW TO: Improve Touch ID’s Accuracy

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Apple’s fingerprint sensor, Touch ID, is the flagship feature on the iPhone 5s. But it doesn’t always work the way it should for some people. Let’s see if we can fix that and improve  the accuracy of Apple’s biometric sensor…

First of all let’s see how to scan a fingerprint. I’ve noticed that, when scanning the fingerprint, some people follow the Apple commercials and ads ( see below ) for a ‘monkey see monkey do’ sessions of fingerprint scanning.

touch-idSTOP doing that! 99.9% of the time you will not use your device that way ( unless you’re my grandma ), and 100% of the time you will be using your thumb not index finger. You need to take your iPhone 5s, and hold it like you normally would in a real world situation. Don’t stress it, just let it flow. If you’re overthinking it, use Facebook or Twitter, send an email anything to get to that sweet spot.

When you’re conformable with your phone, go to Settings > General > Touch ID & Passcode > Enter passcode and scan your finger ( again ) following the steps on your screen.

Here’s an extra trick ( via reddit ):

Go to Settings > General > Touch ID & Passcode > Enter passcode. On this page, if you touch the home button with a registered fingerprint, it will highlight the corresponding fingerprint on the display. This is also giving Touch ID extra training information!

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You can keep doing this, giving it half of your fingerprint that it already recognises and the other half that it doesn’t yet. You can keep repeating this until it covers your entire fingerprint. Repeat for all 5 fingerprints, if you want.

You can also do this under different conditions (cold, a bit wet, etc.) so that it will recognise your fingerprints under these conditions too. Of course, if Touch ID’s accuracy is working fine for you then this won’t be necessary but it may come in useful for some.