The iPhone X has Face ID. The feature uses your face as a password and so far, it seems to be quite accurate. It’s easier than using Touch ID and it’s definitely faster. The user doesn’t have to do anything; the phone detects a face and unlocks if it’s you. Face ID is lending itself to another neat feature on the iPhone X. Unless it detects your face, it keeps the contents of notifications hidden. You barely notice it in action because Face ID is fast and it can display notifications at a glance. The thing is, this isn’t an exclusive iPhone X only feature. You can get it on any iPhone that has Touch ID. Here’s how to hide notification content on a locked iPhone.
Hide Notification Content On Locked iPhone
Open the Settings app and go to Notifications. Under ‘Show Previews’, select ‘When Unlocked’.
Next, in the Settings app, go to General>Accessibility>Home Button, and turn off ‘Rest finger to open’. That’s it.
When you next get any sort of notification on your iPhone, the contents will always be hidden. To view the content, touch the home button with a finger that’s registered with Touch ID. The notification will reveal its preview snippet. You can click/tap the home button to go to your home screen or, you can lock your phone again by pressing the power button. If you don’t press the power button, the phone will lock after a while.
Not New
This is neither an iPhone X exclusive feature, nor is it new in iOS 11. It’s been around since iOS 10. That was when Apple retired the old ‘Slide to unlock’ mechanism of the lock screen. It was replaced by ‘Press home to unlock‘, and users were not happy about it. It resulted in too many accidentally unlocked devices when all a user wanted to do was read notifications or check the time on their lock screen. Many ended up turning ‘Press home to unlock’ on to avoid all this.
The feature is now getting attention again because of the iPhone X and Face ID. Users are noticing that the phone is keeping their notification previews hidden but as soon as they glance at their phone, the preview appears. Granted, this feature is better with Face ID but it’s not that hard to use it with Touch ID. It’s been a whole year since Slide to unlock was binned and we’ve adjusted well enough to be able to make use of this feature now.