“The earliest rumors of the Nexus 6, reported way back in July by Android Police, were pretty spot on,” Ron Amadeo reports for Ars Technica. “Google and Motorola (check) were building a 5.9-inch phablet (check), codenamed Shamu (check), to be released in November (check). It would target US carriers (yep), run Android L (uh huh), and have a fingerprint sensor (wait what?).”
“That last one didn’t work out—the Nexus 6 never shipped with a fingerprint sensor. That doesn’t really make the report wrong, though. Back when it was written, the Nexus 6 and Lollipop used to have a whole setup for reading fingerprints,” Amadeo reports. “Methods like ‘FINGERPRINT_ACQUIRED_TOO_FAST’ and ‘FINGERPRINT_ACQUIRED_TOO_SLOW’ in the fingerprint API suggest it supported a “swipe” style fingerprint reader, which, unlike Apple’s stationary fingerprint reader, requires the finger to be moved across a sensor at the right speed.”
Amadeo reports, “A fingerprint service would require new hardware and probably a new version of Android, so check back in 6-12 months.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Touch ID and the world first 64-bit smartphone, the iPhone 5s, debuted on September 20, 2013. Apple’s 64-bit, Touch ID-enabled lineup currently includes: iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPad Air 2, and iPad mini 3. The inferior wannabe platform Android still has no answers.
Fragmandroid. 32-bit antiques perpetually lagging behind the paradigm-creating Apple iPhone – a looong way behind.
Related articles:
Tom’s Hardware reviews Apple iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus: ‘Lustworthy’ – November 13, 2014
ZDNet reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 6 Plus: ‘Superb design and solid build quality’ – October 28, 2014
Forbes’ long-term iPhone 6 Plus review: ‘This beautiful freak is the iPhone’s future’ – October 22, 2014
Digital Photography Review: Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus offers a very good smartphone camera – October 21, 2014
Apple looks to have significantly underestimated the popularity of 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus – October 21, 2014
Apple shifts order ratio to hugely popular iPhone 6 Plus, away from iPhone 6 – October 7, 2014
Samsung is running scared of Apple’s hot-selling, 64-bit iPhone 6 Plus – September 29, 2014
Re/code reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 6 Plus: ‘A statement phone,’ not a ‘plastic toy’ – September 17, 2014
The Telegraph reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 6 Plus: ‘It’s peerless’ – September 17, 2014
Computerworld reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 6: ‘Sleek, gorgeous and incredibly well built’ – October 1, 2014
TechCrunch reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 6: ‘The best smartphone available’ – September 17, 2014
USA Today’s Baig reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 6/Plus: ‘Smartphone stars’ – September 17, 2014
Walt Mossberg reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 6: ‘The best smartphone on the market’ – September 16, 2014
The Wall Street Journal reviews Apple’s 64-bit iPhone 6: ‘The best smartphone you can buy’ – September 16, 2014
Can’t Touch This! .|. …. Hammer TIME! Oh how quickly AnRoid has become such a tech relic.
Where did Ballmers Left Nut Go?
He’s hanging out with with Zune Tang in the great recycle bin in the sky.
Did not ZuneTang once pontificate about how the Brown Zune would annihilate the iPod? I ponder if MDN ical’d such drivel. Would love for them to chime in.
Ah, nostalgia.
As for Ballmers Left Nut: There was a debacle that got him tossed of the list, at least using that nick. Some of us appreciated his occasional humor (when he remembered to take his Lithium) but our requests for his pardon did not prevent his banishment. I always wonder if the performance artists behind ZuneTang™ and Ballmer’s Left Nut remain among us under more conservative guises. All I know is they were not I.
Comedians can go out of favour and appear dated very quickly unless they can update their material. In that regard Google and its acolytes have rather let them down with their poor performance.
I don’t read all comments here @ MDN, but I recall that BLN was generally serious and sometimes right, and that ZT was done entirely in jest and was never right.
Absolutely. BLN was always insightful.
I think he really used to be, but he degenerated seriously over time where a lot of later posts were simply negative rants with no substance. (Like… uh… a certain incessant poison-flinger we suffer these days.)
I’ve seen him at Clippers games on the TV.
Kudos to Google and Nexus for not following Samsung’s knee-jerk reaction and using the vastly inferior swipe technology that was abandoned by Motorola years earlier. It would be much better for them to wait until they have a product that can compete with Apple’s TouchID.
Samsung’s hasty ‘Me-Too’ addition of a swipe sensor was an embarrassment and referred to as “comically bad” in one review. Let’s hope Google and Nexus come up with a good design including a secure area for the stored fingerprint data.
All I can say is…HAHAHA!
Touch ID is one of the greatest things to ever come out of Cupertino.
I don’t know, I frequently curse myself for unlocking the phone before I have a chance to see the notifications on my lock screen. 🙂
It IS pretty fast, isn’t it? Try what I do, tap the button with a knuckle or an unregistered finger. 🙂
From what I remember, the smartphone industry had said that Apple’s Touch ID was no big deal and hardly mattered at all. It was supposedly another Apple marketing gimmick that was worth next to nothing because there were plenty of fingerprint readers before Apple’s Touch ID. I’m sure Touch ID had been downplayed as having little value to anyone.
Is the mobile industry changing its tune and saying Touch ID is unique and valued? Hardly. I feel Apple will never be able to earn any respect from Wall Street or the mobile industry. Apple can only rely on consumers giving them their due respect.
Yes I think that was one of Balmers Left Nut’s so called insightful comments on the subject.
More Goggle flotsam washing up on the shore, feeding the pile of other abandoned Guzzle crap.
Anyone remember the old hand scanners from the bad-old-days? You’d drag them across whatever you wanted to scan and crossed your fingers and toes that the speed of your drag was done evenly at the right speed or you’d get resulting image distortion. It was a nightmare.
That same image distortion nightmare could have been YOUR’S with the Giggle fingerprint sensor! Thank goodness it got scrapped. Terrible idea. 😛
I wondered just how reliable Touch ID would be when I got my iP6+ last weekend, and I’m really very impressed with how well it works!
I set up four different prints, three on my right hand, and my thumb on my left, and all work faultlessly once I went through the full setup process.
Genius tech, really well integrated into the phone.
And that’s the difference, anyone can be nominally first but it’s the one who gets it right who is the real inventor. Few understand that like Apple.
Good ol’ Zune Tang . . .
“you Mac lemmings”