Apple's 'iPhone 5S' to boast fingerprint sensor embedded in convex sapphire home button

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  • Reply 101 of 211
    apple ][apple ][ Posts: 9,233member
    mac_128 wrote: »

    But forget amputees, what a pain it would be if I had to take off my gloves every time I needed to access my phone. They have gloves now that do not have to be removed to use touch screens. But there's no way around fingerprints.

    If fingerprint authentication is too big of a hassle for certain people, or for people who don't want to take their gloves off, then I guess that they can just do without it, if Apple allows that option.

    I for one, welcome the increased security, and I'll be using it all of time, gloves or no gloves.
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  • Reply 102 of 211
    gazoobeegazoobee Posts: 3,754member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Gatorguy View Post





    ... if the rumor is even true in the first place. image


     


    Yeah.  I finally found the source quote and the analyst is basically just guessing.   


     


    (first quote in article)


     


    - he has heard the same rumours as everyone else that they are using sapphire


    - he assumes that the fingerprint sensor button will need to be thicker to contain the electronics


    - which leads him to speculate on the convex part, because it would cover off and explain his first two assumptions. 


     


    So basically the whole thread here is worthless because he doesn't actually have any real information on the convex part


     


    Obviously, the sapphire might be for another button or turn out to be a false rumour. If it is for the home button, it may not need to be thicker at all.  


    If either one of those is true … boom.  


     


    No need for a convex button.  

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  • Reply 103 of 211
    mstone wrote: »
    Sorry I should have elaborated. For medical instrument manufacturing. Just saying I don't imagine the new button will require a fingerprint.

    I actually thought it was something like that. From your posts I know you've been in the tech field for a long time. Also, I like hearing your opinions so, you know, keep sayin stuff.
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  • Reply 104 of 211
    gazoobeegazoobee Posts: 3,754member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    I heard from a blind friend of mine that the iPhone is very highly regarded by the blind people he knows and that is quite a few because his business is related to providing job opportunities for blind individuals.



     


    The iPhone is pretty much the first and only smartphone that can be effectively used by a blind person.  This is partly why the Home button will always be a physical button.


     


    While Apple has been failing a bit on accessibility issues with recent models (the three finger tap to zoom hasn't worked since iPhone 4 for instance), the iPhone was designed from the start to be accessible to all kinds of different people.  They aren't likely to throw all that good work out the window.  


     


    Any fingerprint sensor will of course be optional in it's use and anyone who doesn't think so is just a fool who hasn't done their research. 

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  • Reply 105 of 211
    noirdesirnoirdesir Posts: 1,027member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by nagromme View Post


    Second, if fingerprint data is being transmitted to Apple, then yes (at the moment) Apple may well be forced to share that data with the government, no warranty necessarily required. But there's no obvious reason the fingerprint needs to be transmitted at all (your 4-digit lock code isn't, for instance) and Apple is very good about stating what data they receive. If Apple were to collect fingerprint data for no reason and without telling people, it would be only a matter of time before someone intercepted that data and told the world how to do so: in short, Apple would be caught in the act.



    The US has been requiring biometric features in passports for every foreigner entering the US (in addition they also take the finger prints of every foreigner entering the US, at every entry, every time and they store those fingerprints). This meant that all governments worldwide had to take fingerprints from everybody wanting a passport. Of course, you don't have to get a passport but then almost everybody I know in Europe has one. And some countries might offer to issue a passport variant without biometrics (that won't allow you to enter the US with, and probably other countries as well) but most countries don't want to bother with having several passport categories. 


     


    Of course, technically the government could delete its record of your fingerprints after it has embedded them in your passport. But then they say, if we store it, you don't have give a new fingerprint sample when you want to renew it. In Germany, where its town or city that hands out the passports, the compromise was that the fingerprints are only stored locally and that law enforcement thus could not search by fingerprint nationwide but that local authorities would only hand out a fingerprint for explicitly named people (so, I'm 100% sure I remember the details correctly).

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  • Reply 106 of 211
    The fingerprint sensor is in the display, not the home button. Check Apple's patent filings.
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  • Reply 107 of 211
    noirdesirnoirdesir Posts: 1,027member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lkrupp View Post


    Whatever this is it had better work perfectly out of the box. Apple has boxed itself into a corner by not releasing any new products in something like 9 months. 



    MacBook Airs are not new products?

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  • Reply 108 of 211
    noirdesirnoirdesir Posts: 1,027member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Mac_128 View Post





    Yes, and that's why requiring a fingerprint to activate it won't work. If I can't get to my phone and need some information from it, no one else would be able to access it -- which won't happen.


    It probably be an either or. Either your fingerprint or your 4-digit code (or a longer code).

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  • Reply 109 of 211
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member


    In other news Samsung is developing a much more secure authentication feature. They will build a DNA sequencer into the screens of their Galaxy phones whereby the user spits on the screen to unlock it. This technique is particularly well suit to their user base who tend to drool a lot anyway. /s image

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  • Reply 110 of 211
    jason98jason98 Posts: 768member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by grblade View Post



    The fingerprint sensor is in the display, not the home button. Check Apple's patent filings.


     


    That would make perfect sense. So many more gestures would open up for both OS and app developers.


    Also, integrating the sensor into the Home button will make the road to a zero bezel way longer than I anticipated. :(

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  • Reply 111 of 211
    sockrolidsockrolid Posts: 2,789member


    Originally Posted by netrox View Post



    kdarling, "That was the whole idea behind the current concave design... to not easily be accidentally clicked."



    I have the feeling that if you accidently click the button that does not detect a fingerprint, it will do nothing.


     


    Makes sense to me.  No finger, no click.


     


    Part of the thinking behind the current concave home button is to prevent accidental clicking, sure.


    But it's also concave to prevent scratching, because the current button is plastic.

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  • Reply 112 of 211

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by darkdefender View Post



    I don't think convex would work. Maybe a flat home button would.


     




    The button doesn't have to 'stick out' of the surface at all... A square is a convex shape, so it could indeed be a perfectly flat button.

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  • Reply 113 of 211
    ingelaingela Posts: 217member


    It looks like iPhones are going to be very popular with law enforcement.

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  • Reply 114 of 211
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member


    The button doesn't have to 'stick out' of the surface at all... A square is a convex shape, so it could indeed be a perfectly flat button.

    A square is a convex shape? A perfectly flat button can be convex?

    You need to take a geometry class.
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  • Reply 115 of 211
    sockrolidsockrolid Posts: 2,789member


    Originally Posted by jason98 View Post


    > Originally Posted by grblade View Post

    >

    > The fingerprint sensor is in the display, not the home button. Check Apple's patent filings.


     


    That would make perfect sense. So many more gestures would open up for both OS and app developers.


    Also, integrating the sensor into the Home button will make the road to a zero bezel way longer than I anticipated. :(



     


    Makes more sense to me than a convex sapphire home button fingerprint sensor.


    The bigger the "fingerprint picture" is, the more accurate the sensor will be.


    But, if the spy shots of the front panel aren't fake, the home button isn't getting any bigger.


    And embedding the sensor in-screen could give it that bigger picture.


     


    Apple Insider post with shots of "5S" front panel: http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/08/06/comparison-pics-show-apples-slight-changes-in-alleged-iphone-5s-front-panel


     


    On the other hand, the AuthenTec sensor doesn't just see the dead skin layer on the surface.


    It sees the living skin layer underneath, which may or may not have higher granularity than the "fingerprint."


    So maybe the AuthenTec technology only needs a small home-button-sized window.


     


    Another thing to factor in: building a fingerprint sensor into part or all of the iPhone's touchscreen surface


    would probably make it more expensive than keeping it on a discrete button.  Unless Apple has 


    discovered some novel LCD panel production technique that keeps the cost down.  But wouldn't the


    in-screen sensor require another connector or more leads in the existing connector?  Not seeing that


    in the spy photos (which of course could be faked.)


     


     


    We won't really know until there are spy shots of the new home button and/or the actual announcement.

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  • Reply 116 of 211
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,398member


    Why the hell is this headline written as an absolute fact? "Likely", and "rumors" are not the same as fact. 

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  • Reply 117 of 211
    slurpyslurpy Posts: 5,398member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by KDarling View Post


    Anything's possible, I guess, but this rumor wouldn't seem to work well with current Authentec sensors.


     


    A covering for capacitive or RF is usally only a few microns thick.   Can sapphire slices be made that thin?  Wouldn't carving out a convex version be extremely wasteful, too?


     


    Not to mention that convex sounds like a terrible idea in one's pocket.  A button sticking out is going to get clicked all the time.  That was the whole idea behind the current concave design... to not easily be accidentally clicked.


     


    Also, the home button isn't big enough for a whole-finger scanner, so you'd need to swipe, and a raised button sounds like it would easily get clicked.


     


    I just don't see this whole idea of a scanner in the Home button anyway.  Next to it would make more sense.  Unless the whole idea is that waking up the phone by punching the Home button, fully authenticates the user for the entire time that the phone remains awake.



     


    KDarling, you should definitely send Apple an email with your concerns, which took you a few seconds of think of. No doubt over the years and months of developing implementing, and testing this technology, that they certainly did not think of or test any of these fundamental concepts on a device that will sell in the hundreds of millions. Almost every single major decision that Apple has ever taken was defined as a "terrible idea" by armchair CEOs everywhere- after which these decisions and concepts became massive successes with none of the issue that people concerned-trolled about. One would think you would have a bit more humility than having absolute confidence that all these things are "terrible ideas", without having a second of hands-on knowledge about any of them, and knowing that Apple has spent thousands of hours of testing.  

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  • Reply 118 of 211
    droidftwdroidftw Posts: 1,009member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Slurpy View Post


    No doubt over the years and months of developing implementing, and testing this technology, that they certainly did not think of or test any of these fundamental concepts on a device that will sell in the hundreds of millions.



     


    This mistake keeps happening in this thread.  Apple has not spent "years and months of developing implementing and testing this technology", that was AuthenTec.  Apple recently purchased them and are implementing their work.

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  • Reply 119 of 211
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    droidftw wrote: »
    This mistake keeps happening in this thread.  Apple has not spent "years and months of developing implementing and testing this technology", that was AuthenTec.  Apple recently purchased them and are implementing their work.

    What's your point? (Other than to try to put Apple down as you do in virtually every one of your posts, of course)

    Apple bought Authentec a year ago. They have clearly had something to do with the product. Furthermore, even if they had never bought Authentec, that doesn't mean that they didn't test the technology before using it. THAT is the entire point that Slurpy was making. Apple doesn't release half-baked ideas - they test their products very thoroughly and poor design mistakes are quite rare. They certainly know what they're doing more than some random Apple-hater on AI.
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  • Reply 120 of 211
    droidftwdroidftw Posts: 1,009member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by jragosta View Post





    What's your point? (Other than to try to put Apple down as you do in virtually every one of your posts, of course)



    Apple bought Authentec a year ago. They have clearly had something to do with the product. Furthermore, even if they had never bought Authentec, that doesn't mean that they didn't test the technology before using it. THAT is the entire point that Slurpy was making. Apple doesn't release half-baked ideas - they test their products very thoroughly and poor design mistakes are quite rare. They certainly know what they're doing more than some random Apple-hater on AI.


     


    I'm not putting down Apple at all.  There's nothing wrong with buying a company and integrating their technology into your own.  In fact, it's smart business.  You seem to be looking for an argument where there isn't one.

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