One thing to note: It's at least five times, not exactly. Just click that side button until your phone vibrates a bit and it's locked. I mainly see myself using this feature in high stress situations, like going through airport security or being pulled over, so not needing to count is a small plus.

It's also worth pointing out that iOS already has an option to erase your phone when the PIN is entered incorrectly a certain number of times. A lot of companies enforce this if you receive your work email on your device (eight times in my case). So if you are in a situation where a PIN is being demanded there's still a way to keep secure.

Your phone can be easily restored from an iCloud backup once you've got access to wifi. You can always restore from another device or backup if there's data you don't want seen if somehow you can be compelled to do a restore.

I'm not sure how I feel about storing 100+ GB in icloud and restoring it via my data plan.

Local encrypted backups via itunes are an option too, if you are traveling with a laptop.

Is that still going to work? I have the impression that Apple is simplifying iTunes and removing everything but audio and video.

I haven't tried since installing itunes 12.7 (the version that removes the App Store etc), but reports I've read suggest it still backs up everything with the notable exception of apps. These have to re-download from the appstore on the phone iteself presumably now. I'm assuming though that all app data is preserved (one would hope so!). Happy to be corrected if this proves not the case.

From macdailynews:

"iTunes backups are still there for iOS devices, but performing a restore won’t transfer your apps from your Mac, but will instead download them over the Internet from Apple, which is, of course, likely to be slower."

You can achieve the same effect on some Android devices by exploiting the password lock from scanning the wrong finger repeatedly.

If a judge issues a warrant allowing the police to compel the use of biometrics, can a person use the wrong finger? Courts can't compel someone enter their PIN. So can a court compel not only biometric "use" but the correct biometric?

My Android forces PIN entry after 5 wrong fingerprints.

If you refuse to tell them which finger you used, and comply by only pressing whichever finger they ask you to press, they will have a 10% chance of getting in each time.

So if you chose only 1 finger and you chose it randomly, they will have a 50% chance of getting in after 5 attempts.

And hope they're biased against the middle finger

You've always been able to do this on iOS as well, but it risks an obstruction of justice charge.