Newbie mistake...

Newbie mistake...  Yesterday afternoon, after transferring our old phone information to our new iPhone Xs, we did a few tests.  One of them was to call each other, to make sure the phones were working.  As we did this, we were both holding our phones, standing right next to each other.  I called Debbie, and the ringer volume was really low – even though we had it cranked all the way up.  She called me, and we got the same result.  I spent a good fifteen minutes cruising through the settings, thinking there must be some new setting that for some reason defaulted to a low ringer volume.  Couldn't find a darned thing.

So to Google I went, and I found plenty of people complaining of the same thing.  However, the first ten or so posts I read covered only the same settings that I'd already checked.  Dang it!  Finally I read a post that mentioned an “attention-aware” setting associated with the new face ID on the iPhone X.  It suggested turning that feature off would raise the volume.  But that made me wonder what the heck that feature was ... and after a bit more searching and reading I finally understood it.  The iPhone X is knows if you're paying attention to it – and in that circumstance, it lowers the volume of the ringer and alerts.  Debbie and I were both staring at our phones when we ran the test, so the phones knew it and lowered the volume.  I put my phone in my pocket and had Debbie call me, and sure enough, the ringer volume was nice and loud.

That's a ... really nice feature, actually.  There's no reason for a loud ringer if I'm already staring at the phone.  We left the setting alone.

BTW, the face ID is so far working quickly and flawlessly for me.  Debbie can't use it to get into my phone, and vice versa.  When I pick up my phone, the face ID is so fast that I really don't even notice it – my phone “just works”.  I'm used to typing in a 6-digit PIN every time I pick up my phone; that's going to take a while to get out of that habit. :)