Laggy Touch ID on Your iPhone? There's a Fix for That

While Face ID might have taken over as Apple's favorite authentication method, Touch ID is still very much alive. The tech is usually speedy and accurate, but you might have noticed that it's been a bit laggy recently. If that's the case, you should know that Apple actually fixed this issue. Here's what you can do.

This Touch ID issue is found in iPhone 7 models running iOS 14 through iOS 14.5. When you press down on the Home button with Touch ID, unlocking the iPhone will be laggy, followed by an initial sluggish iOS experience. After some time — one report claims 10 seconds — things return to normal. It's inconsistent and doesn't happen every time, but it shouldn't happen at all.

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That's why it's such great news that Apple recently patched this issue. Users agree that iOS 14.5.1, as well as the iOS 14.6 beta, include the fix, and that unlocking an iPhone 7 with Touch ID no longer features any lag.

This patch is welcome but not necessarily a surprise. After all, bug fixes are par for the course with software updates of any kind. What's odd here is that Apple let this issue run from iOS 14 all the way through iOS 14.5, then fixed it without any indication whatsoever.

The bug fix isn't listed in the release notes for iOS 14.5.1 or any of the iOS 14.6 betas, so unless you updated to the latest version of iOS, you'd have no idea that Apple had solved this frustrating problem.

Cover image by Jake Peterson/Gadget Hacks