“With the iPhone 5s, Apple has introduced the first, functional, mainstream fingerprint ID sensor – Touch ID. With it, the touch of your finger activates a scanner that reads the living, sub-dermal layer for ridges, arches, and whorls, transfers the data to a secure enclave on the brand new Apple A7 processor, and then returns a simple yes/know response to unlock the phone or authorize an iTunes transaction,” Rene Ritchie writes for iMore. “Once you get used to how easy and utterly transparent it is, you start to want it everywhere, and you don’t stop. How about the iPad 5 and iPad mini 2, rumored to be coming this October? How about the Mac?”
“So far, based on all of our tests with multiple people on multiple devices, Touch ID just works,” Ritchie writes. “It works so well when you try a device without Touch ID, you become instantly annoyed it doesn’t have it. It works so well even Mobile Nations luminaries from other platforms, like Kevin Michaluk want it on all things, immediately.”
“The iPad 5 is the easiest to imagine… The iPad mini is a little tougher to figure out. Last year’s iPad mini didn’t get the Apple A6 processor, instead it got the year-old Apple A5. That was fine, since it was the same chip as the iPad 2 and the iPad mini was essentially a variant of the iPad 2 line. It wasn’t Retina like the iPad 4. If Apple brings Retina to the next iPad mini, would they try and do it with an Apple A6 or A6X, or would they go all out with an Apple A7 series chip?” Ritchie writes. “The Mac is a whole other kettle of fish. Literally. It doesn’t – yet – run on Apple’s A-series processor line, but on Intel’s hardware, and it doesn’t have a Home button. It’s conceivable Apple could create a custom Touch ID chip for Macs that replicates just that functionality from the Apple A7.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Great. More letters for Tim Cook from Senator Smiley.
Related article:
U.S. Senate Democrat Al Franken demands answers from Apple CEO Tim Cook over iPhone 5s’ Touch ID – September 20, 2013