Cydia Tweak: Appellancy Brings Facial Recognition To Apple's iOS
One clever jailbreak tweak that’s presently in open beta allows iOS device users to unlock their handset using facial recognition. Called Appellancy, you can pick up and play around with the jailbreak tweak free of charge, and though a little buggy, the package has been working as advertised on my iPhone 5s.
The jailbreak tweak works by placing a new iOS app icon on the Home screen, and here users can add a list of authorized faces to Appellancy.
You can add faces by simply holding your iPhone up in front of you – the handset should then start snapping pictures continuously, with users advised to have a selection of images across multiple lighting environments saved to their iOS device in order to improve accuracy.
Once added, users can then simpy hold their iPhone in front of their face, and it should unlock as if by magic.
I’ve been testing the package and it works surprisingly well; you’ll need to have a passcode enabled on your handset in order for the jailbreak tweak to run, and this passcode is then auto-inputted after Appellancy has matched your face against an image it has stored. It doesn’t seem as if the package can work alongside Touch ID just yet.
For a closer look at the jailbreak tweak, check out this preview video from iTwe4kz:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwSWWRPBncQ&feature=youtu.beIf you can’t see the above video, please click this link.
As mentioned, Appellancy is in open beta at present, and as you can see in the above video there are a few quirks in the software. For example, at the minute the jailbreak tweak’s iOS app doesn’t have an icon; you could find that it crashes on occassion, too.
However, since the package can be downloaded free of charge, we don’t see this as being much of a problem. In order to install Appellancy on your iOS device, be sure to add the following repository address to the list of “Sources” in your Cydia app: “http://cydia.abovezero.org.”
How do you like the package – do you think we could see Face ID reach Apple’s mobile OS further down the line?
See also: Apple’s Maps App Gets 3-D Flyover Support For Perth, Saint-Tropez And Cordoba, Hue Who? LG Takes On Philips With Its Own iOS-Connected Smart Bulbs, and AppAdvice - iPhone/iPad App New.
