One of the biggest new features of the iPhone 5s is the fingerprint scanner built into the Home button, also known as Touch ID. This allows users to scan their fingerprint instead of entering their password every time they want to unlock their phone. A stylish and useful feature. However, Apple only allows you to scan up to five fingers.
This means that if you want both hands to be able to unlock your phone, you will have to sacrifice some fingers, meaning they cannot work with the fingerprint sensor. However, a loophole was found that allows you to register more than five fingers with Touch ID, and here’s how to do it.
Owner of iPhone 5 Note Suwanchote discovered the workaround and posted a video on YouTube showing how to do it (embedded below). It’s almost five minutes long, so if you don’t have time to watch the whole thing, scroll down and get a quick introduction to how the method works.
How to Register More than Five Fingers?
Open the Settings app and go to . If you already have five fingerprints registered, you’ll need to delete one to add one for this tutorial. Tap to start the process of adding fingerprints to the Touch ID database.
The process of adding a fingerprint involves holding your finger over the home button and removing it by doing this over and over. However, to register multiple fingers as “one finger,” switch between fingers while resting and lifting. Oddly enough, Touch ID does not detect that you are using different fingerprints for it, although it acts on the assumption that you only use one finger for setup.
https://youtu.be/3Qasx0NUDRw
You can set two fingers to one finger, or even five to one finger, as Suwanchote did, so it depends on how many fingers occupy a single slot. You can separate your right and left hands into two slots, and leave the other three slots by having your loved ones scanned their fingerprints so they can unlock your phone for whatever reason.
Single Warning
There is really only one caveat we see with this method. Touch ID lets you scan your finger multiple times from different angles so it can more accurately know what your fingerprint looks like. By using this workaround method, you are reducing the number of times Touch ID scans each finger, which means that accuracy can drop, resulting in less accurate results when trying to unlock your phone. It seemed to work fine for Suwanchote, but your mileage may vary depending on how you do it. Let us know how it worked for you in the comments below!
