Agreed. I'd want the phone to look "more asleep" when locked, e.g. a dimmed or vignetted background photo which would pop to life when unlocked.

Something that "pop" yes. A border flash, a hint at the bottom that means "you can swipe now". The [un]lock icon can stay but it's to high focus to be a good UI.

To be honest, with the full glass, I expected something like.. a full screen fingerprint scanner (have no idea if it's feasible at all). I thing TouchID is the best biometric input for casual operation.

But then you'd never be able to look at your notifications without "unlocking" the phone. That doesn't seem too useful.

Adding a clearer visual cue for unlock would have no impact one way or the other here.

Sorry, I read your first response as the screen being dimmer, not the wallpaper. I was complaining that you wouldn't be able to read notifications if the screen was dimmed but that wasn't what you said. My bad!