When I add an app-- in app store -- I see the confusing ID touch with thumbprint box (icon) come up. What is it saying to me? It seems I still have to manually enter my ID.

You have to manually enter your Apple ID password to turn on Touch ID for the App Store the first time. Thereafter all that is needed is the Touch ID. However, you will have to enter your six digit ID any time you restart your iOS device to reactivate Touch ID. You may have to re-enter everything after an iOS upDATE or upGRADE as well.

Thanks Joe, will keep an eye out on this...

My pass is 4 digit for phone.

I kept pushing touch ID, and all I get was Siri, coming up, so let's see if it really works...

You are pressing too hard. A light touch is all that is required to read your fingerprint.

The iPhone 7 requires a six digit code and rumor has it the iPhone 8 or maybe 9 will use 3D facial recognition instead of fingerprints.

Wouldn't that be overkill?

What advantage would it offer over unique fingerprints, and how, for example, would it cope with a user's sustaining a facial injury? (If you don't look right, how do you get into your phone to change your "passface"?)

Apple is driven by two sometimes complementary needs. The first is convenience; the second is security.

Convenience: Holding the phone up is more convenient than touching the sensor, which is more convenient than entering a number.

Security: Thumbprints are interesting because they fall into a strange legal loophole. Legally, the government can not compel you to give up things that are in your head, such as a passcode or a combination to a safe, because the Constitution prevents you from being forced to testify against yourself, and the Supreme Court has ruled many times (going back to the 1800s) that compelling you to give up something in your head is compelling you to testify against yourself.

However, the courts have long held that you can be forced to give up your fingerprints. Those precedents were set before biometrics, but they've been interpreted to mean that the police can not make you give up a passcode to your smartphone but they CAN make you use your fingerprint to unlock one.

Strange, huh?

Apple is a company that is strongly on the side of personal privacy over police action. It's not clear that a facial scan could be required by police to unlock a phone.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

As for facial injury, you handle that the same way you handle getting a cut on your thumb: if the scan doesn't work, you just type in your passcode.

Thanks, tacit.

A password alternative obviously didn't occur to me.