Earlier today, Samsung highlighted many topics that are to be presented during its Samsung Developer Conference (SDC) in San Francisco. One of the things that were briefly talked about was the SDK for reading fingerprints. As you may know, both this feature has been the object of many rumors, including one that said that Samsung was going to buy a finger-print related company – Samsung denied and rejected the rumor as “completely false”.
The Galaxy S5 is rumored to get an Iris Scanner as well (this is total “rumor mill”), but while the security benefits may be greater, one has to wonder if the convenience would be so great: what happens if there is enough light? Assuming that a light is added, will people need to look into the front camera to unlock the phone? An Iris scanner may be interesting if one accessed super-critical data every once in a while, but it’s no substitute for the convenience of a good fingerprint reader. That said, Samsung has a big stake in the enterprise market, so this is where something “more secure” may make a difference.
As I said in my review of the iPhone 5s, Apple’s Touch ID is all about convenience: it makes things smoother when compared to unlocking the phone with a 4-digit code. The benefit is real, and I think that it would be a good thing if other OEMs chose to integrate something similar. The inclusion of fingerprint support on Samsung’s roadmap is a good sign that this will happen sooner rather than later.
Developers who are interested by this can stop by the Samsung developer conference that will take place until tomorrow.
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