When the iPhone X came out last year, people got excited for Face ID, the new feature that allowed the user to unlock their device with just their face. However, there was one annoying limitation in iOS 11 when it came to Face ID: you could only set up one face.

While that means that it's more secure, your phone couldn't be unlocked by someone else who needs access to your phone every now and then, such as your significant other, in case of emergencies or something.

But thanks to iOS 12, you can now set up a second person for Face ID, for whatever reasons you may need. It's easy, although a bit hidden. We're going to show you how to do it!

How to set up the second person

  1. Go to Settings on your iPhone X, XS, XS Max, XR, or iPad Pro (2018).
  2. Find Face ID & Passcode.
  3. Input your existing passcode.
  4. Find Set up an Alternate Appearance.

  5. Follow the instructions on the screen to set up Face ID for the other person, or a drastically different version of yourself that your iPhone might see on a regular basis. This includes the use of heavy makeup, sunglasses, hats, etc.

Please note that you can only store one primary Face ID and one Alternate Face. If you want to change the secondary one, then you must reset Face ID.

Why you should set up an Alternate Appearance

You may be asking yourself, "why would I want to give someone else access to my device with their face?" or "why do I need to set up an alternative appearance? Isn't it supposed to know who I am?"

Firstly, sometimes your significant other may need to use your phone for something, like making a phone call or looking something up and they don't have their own phone with them at the moment. It happens. So if you don't want to give them your passcode, which I think could be more sensitive, just let them set up their face as an "Alternate Appearance" so they can quickly get into your phone and not bug you for the passcode every time.

Secondly, from my experience with an iPhone XS so far (I came from an iPhone 8 Plus), Face ID doesn't seem to always work. I'm still trying to get the hang of it, honestly, but it does get annoying when it doesn't recognize me possibly because of lighting or makeup for that day.

I think an Alternative Appearance is good to set up because it helps you cover all of your bases, and perhaps lead to less Face ID failures.

I just wish that the Alternative Appearance allowed for more than just one more face, though. I think it should be similar to Touch ID, where you could store up to four or five fingerprints for the device to scan, which I always did (two fingers on both my left and right hands, and one for my significant other).

Are you using an Alternate Appearance?

It's about time that Apple let us set up more than one face on a device, right? It's definitely something that should have been implemented last year, but at least we have it now, and hopefully, we'll be able to have more than two stored on the device in the future.

Are you using Alternate Appearance? Sound off in the comments!

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