While the removal of Touch ID on the iPhone X was a gamble, it sort of paid off as Face ID certainly does work as advertised, at least for the most part. However it also created some inconveniences, such as not being able to approve family purchases which meant that users had to keep entering their passwords.
Given that some passwords can be long, it can be rather tiresome compared to using a fingerprint. However the good news is that according to 9to5Mac, they have discovered that in the iOS 11.3 beta that Apple will be allowing users to use Face ID to approve family purchases, thus putting an end to that inconvenience.
However from their testing, it seems that a password is still required and this must be entered in manually on the first purchase, after which users will be given a prompt asking if they would like to use Face ID for future approvals. We’re not sure how many users have been inconvenienced by the lack of Face ID approval so far, but either way it does seem strange that Apple did not include it in the first place.
Previously it was speculated that it could be due to security concerns where some family members could bear striking resemblances to each other, which in turn could negate the whole point of having Face ID in the first place.