[bentcorner]

> But they nail the initial execution, and the communication. So their phones are still the absolute centre of the market. And no other company can inspire product lust to the degree they can.

While they may have implemented Touch ID really well, it's still just yet another way of unlocking the device. Strategically it has little benefit to Apple.

How much would you pay for Touch ID? It offers little security benefit, only allowing you to log in a tiny bit faster. I can log in with my passcode fairly quickly and often without even looking at the screen. Maybe $5? $10 at a stretch. Definitely not worth getting locked into Apple's platform for another generation.

Edit: It will be extremely telling of the politics of touch ID internally within apple when we see the uptake of this stuff on non-iPhone hardware. Does the entire company believe in this technology? Will we see it on the iPad, iPad Mini? On Macbooks? Once we see deeper integration of touch ID across the rest of Apple's hardware devices and software services would a moat start being formed, but it would require a stern guiding hand within Apple to make it happen.

[gfodor]

> While they may have implemented Touch ID really well, it's still just yet another way of unlocking the device. Strategically it has little benefit to Apple.

Uh, how many times a day do you perform some type of authentication of your identity? I have a feeling this will be one of those foot-in-mouth statements.

[bentcorner]

Haha, I certainly hope so - that's what I meant by my edit above. If Apple pushes this technology across the entire company then only at that time does it become a compelling part of the Apple ecology. If too many services/devices "chicken out" and avoid integrating with Touch ID then Apple will continue to be forced to carry legacy authentication mechanisms, lowest-common-denominator style.

If this tech remains an iPhone (or even just iDevice) only tech, it's a (albeit impressive) party trick. Nothing provided by touch ID can't be eventually replicated by a competitor, patents notwithstanding.

No other OEM is positioned like Apple is to pull this off, but it won't be easy to elevate touch id to how we today perceive something like retina.

[sbuk]

It seems that the technology is intrinsically linked to the A7 processor. I hate linking to a Quora article, but this one actually highlights why the A7 is such a leap.

http://www.quora.com/Apple-Secure-Enclave/What-is-Apple%E2%8...

[ZeroGravitas]

tl;dr;

Apple bought a company that made fingerprint scanners (like the one in the Motorola Atrix HD) and put the secure info in the secure area of the ARM chip, which ARM designed for putting secure info in.

Except make that sound like the moon landing, SpaceX, Tesla and the Oceans 11 heist all rolled into one.

Are we still allowed to call Apple a cult? Or are they a full blown religion now?

[Bud]

In other words, you think it's fun to make up a sentence, out of whole cloth, about how Apple is supposedly "making something sound like the moon landing", etc., and then post a troll attack based on what you made up. In addition, all your facts, every single fact in your post, is wrong:

-No, the Touch ID scanner is not like the one in the Motorola Atrix, at all. Totally different and superior technology. The Motorola uses the standard, inferior, straight-line fingerprint sensor that you have to swipe your finger across. These are easily fooled by many methods, including a lifted print or a mold of the user's finger.

-No, it's not an ARM chip; Apple designed the chip. Not ARM. Apple also designed the secure area of the chip; not ARM. It does use ARM CPU cores, yes. Which is different.

Are we allowed to call you a troll yet? Or just content-free and annoying?

Apple hasn't "made it sound" like anything except a fingerprint sensor with good convenience and very good security. Which is what it apparently is. So pipe down, mister.

[ZeroGravitas]

I was referring to the 1744 word Quora answer that was linked in the post I replied to. Not to Apple's official PR, just one member of their volunteer PR army.

That link also claims that Apple uses a "version of TrustZone" from ARM, which seems highly likely. We'll not hear about it from Apple just like Nuance aren't allowed to talk about the fact that they make the voice for Siri, and just like Samsung screen prints little Apple logos on the chips it makes for them.

But since you're so sure it's not, what's your source?

[sbuk]

> Are we still allowed to call Apple a cult? Or are they a full blown religion now?

What was the point of that?

[ZeroGravitas]

That I like reading about technology and business, not feel-good fairy stories that people make up about technology and business and (un-?) intentionally obscure the usually more interesting truth?

[jmcintyre]

Apple stimulates brain's religious responses, claims BBC

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/apple-stimulates-brains-reli...

I guess this isn't true just for Apple, but for other major brands as well.

[coldtea]

>While they may have implemented Touch ID really well, it's still just yet another way of unlocking the device. Strategically it has little benefit to Apple.

No, it's not.

It has two properties that are very important:

1) It's very secure (not like Face unlock, which could be fooled by a photograph or fail to work depening on poor lighting etc).

2) It's very natural (you already press the home button to open the phone anyway, you don't need good light, you don't need to hold it so that the camera centers your face etc). So people will use it, unlike Face unlock which is usually discarded.

Why are both of those things important? Because it means it can be used a authentication mechanism for buying stuff. In fact, Apple has already integrated it with iTunes IIRC.

BOOM, you don't even have to add your Apple ID password anymore!

Add Bluetooth 4, Passbook, camera for scanning codes and stuff, and half a billion iTunes accounts, and you have an "mobile payments" winner.

[jonny_eh]

If it gets rid of passwords, it's the greatest invention since the iPhone.

[gnaffle]

Strategically it has a huge benefit to Apple. Touch ID provides a secure way to authenticate your iTunes account, which millions have linked to their credit cards.

If Apple ever starts offering payment services through iTunes (using NFC or some other technology), authenticated payments can be done in an instant instead of "just wait a bit while I enter my password".

[bentcorner]

By strategically I mean that while it may offer great benefits to both customers and apple, the technology in and of itself offers only a small barrier to moving to another platform. That barrier will rise with the adoption of touch id across Apple devices and services.

If you're an iPhone user and I took away your iPhone and replaced it with an Android phone, would the first thing you complain about be touch id?

Build quality, accessories, apps (maybe?) are all things that Apple has going for it with the iPhone that at the moment are more strategically important than touch id.

It's like free samples at Costco. They're awesome, you miss them when you shop at a different grocery store, but at the end of the day there are other reasons why you shop at Costco and if you decided you needed to go to a different grocery store, those free samples aren't going to sway you to come back.

[gnaffle]

If I was used to paying for goods with my iPhone using touch ID and I had to start entering a passphrase instead with another phone to make payments, it might very well be one of the biggest complaints I had.

[ulisesrmzroche]

It's a consumer product, so it's more about the feeling that only your fingerprint can unlock your phone. If it takes off, and people like it, you're going to see it everywhere. The politicking is just slippery slope stuff, who knows what's going to happen.

[panacea]

"Does the entire company believe in this technology?"

Huh? Apple isn't a bunch of fiefdoms with competing and disparate product silos. Apple as a whole is completely behind this technology, and the fact that you don't understand that renders your opinion fairly moot.