Emergency features are unreasonably difficult or impossible to reach from iOS 10 lock screen

Originator:dwineman
Number:rdar://28857832 Date Originated:19-Oct-2016 04:00 PM
Status:Open Resolved:
Product:iOS Product Version:10.0.2
Classification:Serious Bug Reproducible:Always
 
Summary:
The Emergency Call and Medical ID features are on the passcode entry screen, which used to be a swipe away from the lock screen. To get to this screen on iOS 10, the user must now fail Touch ID three times. On a phone without a passcode enabled, these features are simply inaccessible.

Steps to Reproduce:
On iOS 9 and earlier, these were the steps to place an emergency call from a passcode-locked phone:

1. Wake device
2. Swipe right
3. Tap Emergency

On an iOS 10 device with Touch ID, these are the steps:

1. Wake device
2. Place an incorrect finger on the Touch ID sensor and wait for it to fail
3. Place an incorrect finger on the Touch ID sensor and wait for it to fail
4. Place an incorrect finger on the Touch ID sensor and wait for it to fail
5. Tap Emergency

The same additional steps are also required to access Medical ID, but this is far worse because no person on earth is ever going to think of deliberately failing Touch ID verification three times in order to find out a trauma patient’s blood type.

Expected Results:
Some sort of Emergency/Medical ID control prominently displayed on the lock screen instead of buried where it takes absurdly long to get to in the best case, and is impossible to find in the worst case.

Actual Results:
Catastrophe.

Regression:
New issue introduced in iOS 10.

Notes:
On a phone with no passcode set, emergency calls and Medical ID are simply inaccessible from the lock screen. It’s typically not too hard to navigate to the Phone app to place a call on an unlocked phone, but in the case of a first responder trying to find an accident victim’s medical information or emergency contact, this is a disaster. They’ll have to dig through home screen pages and folders to find the Health app, or know how to use Spotlight to search for it, all of which costs precious time. And on a locked phone, requiring three failed Touch ID attempts adds significant delay — and this is worse still with older Touch ID sensors that take longer to evaluate each attempt. (And that’s assuming the user will even think of following this absurd procedure on what is probably an unfamiliar phone.)

This is a disastrous, irresponsible change that will literally cost lives. It needs to be rectified as soon as possible.

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