Here is a brand new tweak that’s just been released for beta that unlocks your iPhone using facial recognition. You’ll no longer have to slide to unlock, use TouchID, or enter a passcode. Simply wake up your device and as long as your face is visible to the front facing camera, it will automatically unlock.
This is a really exciting tweak and I’m really looking forward to it’s official release. But until then, in order to give this a try for free, you will have to add the repo cydia.abovezero.org. Then just search for “Appellancy” and it should show right up.
Once you install Appellancy, the first thing you’ll want to do it make sure that it’s enabled in the settings. Then you’ll have some options to toggle on or off, here are a few: You can disable Appellancy when there’s notifications on the lock screen to keep it from automatically unlocking and you missing your notifications. You can also make it enable only on the passcode lock screen if you so desire. Disabling Appellancy while music is playing on your device will keep you from unwanted unlocks if, for instance, you’re just waking up your device to switch a song from the lock screen.
Once you’ve enabled the settings the way you want, head over to the Appellancy app, there is no actual icon since the graphics haven’t been designed just yet, but you should see a gridded icon there to tap on. Some users have said there was no app at all, if that’s the case, it’s possible it’s invisible and you will need to tap on the next available open space on your springboard where your next installed app would be place and it’s should launch the tweak.
Once inside the app, there will be a “Deny” album, which is full of people that are not allowed to unlock the device. You can add people to this album if you so choose. You will want to tap on the “+” icon in the top right corner to add a new album with your face. This way the tweak will know what face to look for when unlocking the device.
Once you’ve created the new album, just tap “Start” in order to initiate the picture taking process. Make sure you are holding the device and moving the camera around your camera to get different angled pictures of your face. This will help with face detection if you’re holding your iPhone differently each time. It will automatically take 10 pictures and it will stop. If you want more pictures, or more angles, then just tap “Start” again and it will take more pictures and add those to your album.
Once you’re done, taking pictures, just lock your device, make sure your face is visible to the front facing camera, and wake up your device. It should automatically unlock. The more pictures you have of yourself in the album, the longer it’s going to take for the device to unlock. I also had a few difficulties with different lightings, but overall it worked pretty well.
If you want to see how to set this up and see the tweak in action, check out the video below:
Give Appellancy a shot and download the beta for free. The beta will expire on April 1, 2014 so you have a little bit of time to see if you’ll want to purchase the final version or not once it’s released. Make sure you let us know what you think about it in the comments!
Update (April 28, 2014):
Appellancy is now out of beta, and is available on Cydia for $1.99. Give it a shot and let us know how it goes in the comments.
