Apple Bringing Handy Touch ID to New iPhones & iPads

When the iPhone 5s launched late last year, Apple touted the fact that it was equipped with fingerprint scanning technology, which they called Touch ID, to let users unlock their phones with a tap of their finger – and only their finger. Despite initial skepticism regarding the use and storage of biometric data for a device like this, Touch ID seems to have become a normal part of the iPhone user’s daily life. As such, new hints suggest that Apple will keep Touch ID in its next handset, the iPhone 6, and will even expand it into its line of iPad tablets.

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, of KGI Securities in Thailand, has written a new report saying that Apple will bring Touch ID to its new devices released in 2014. That report is disseminated in a post on AppleInsider, which reveals that Touch ID will be installed on “every non-iPod iOS device launched this year, including both iPhone 6 versions, the second-generation iPad Air and refreshed iPad mini with Retina display.”

The report also claims that the chemicals used to make Touch ID modules are getting a change in order to “boost durability,” pointing to a potential problem with the current modules being used on the iPhone 5s. While we haven’t heard much in the way of reports about Touch ID not working over extended periods of use, it stands to reason that a piece of equipment as sensitive as a fingerprint scanner might not last forever.

Ming-Chi Kuo has built up a reputation for solid predictions of new tech. His report from March regarding Amazon’s smartphone, and it being equipped with six front-facing cameras, seems to be on the way to coming true. That’s why his latest report regarding Apple’s intentions with Touch ID are worth noting. Moreover, there have also been reports that the next Nexus smartphone – if it exists at all – will also feature a fingerprint scanner. It seems as though biometric-based security is the next big tech trend. Pretty soon, you can bet they’ll be integrated into wearable gadgets too.

[Source: AppleInsider via CNET]