I am a hardcore apple fan and as expected was online following the latest Apple iPhone 5s event on CNET the other day. As was rumored the iPhone 5S does include fingerprint technology called TouchID, similar to the one I wrote about in the Ding Dong article earlier. Fingerprint has been the way of identifying people from the prehistoric ages....see this article online for a history about fingerprints - http://onin.com/fp/fphistory.html or read chapter 1 of this book http://www.nij.gov/pubs-sum/225320.htm by the National Institute of Justice (kindle or other eReader versions available for free).
The objective of apple is to help speed up things - basically eliminate entering passwords the umpteen times you access your phone in a day. Just place your finger on the home button and voila - open sesame! That is convenience at its best combined with security. This maybe the beginning of the end of passwords and pass codes if other smartphone manufacturers follow suit which I strongly believe they will.
Take for example the point and shoot camera that are slowly vanishing given the quality of pictures on most smartphones getting better by the day and the convenience of taking pictures with a phone instead of carrying a second device in your pocket. Or the home phone for that matter is slowly fading away.......
Best of all is that this could be the beginning of true mobile wallets for mobile payments eliminating the need for credit cards someday. Given Apple has talked about using the TouchID for iTunes and app store purchases, I believe this will surely be followed by combining Passbook app with TouchID for quick online purchases and may be even offline at the retail stores. Combined with blue tooth technology in iPhone or NFC in other phones (like the Fujitsu Regza phones in Japan), placing your finger on the fingerprint sensor can approve payments to a credit card terminal at the checkout lane at the retail or grocery stores. This way next time you go out all you would need is your phone and your drivers license for ID.
Maybe the day is not far when the phone with fingerprint sensor on it is your proof of ID :)
On a historical note, Apple is not the first company to put a fingerprint sensor on a phone. Siemens (Germany) and Sagem (France) experimented with sensors on phones back in 1998 and 2000 respectively but it was Fujitsu of Japan that came out with the commercially successful clam shell (flip) phones that had fingerprint sensors on them in 2003. Fujitsu is the only phone company that has built the most models (30) with fingerprint sensors on them. The japanese already use phones extensively to make mobile payments for purchases at vending machines and at stores. Motorola (Google now) and Fujitsu both announced Android phones back in 2011 with fingerprint sensor. The Motorola Atrix model did not take off and was discontinued but Fujitsu has had some success limited to Japan.
Now let's wait and watch if the magic of Apple can make this commonplace the world over......or will it also end up on the heap of cool but discarded technology pile.
Cheers
-Ram
The objective of apple is to help speed up things - basically eliminate entering passwords the umpteen times you access your phone in a day. Just place your finger on the home button and voila - open sesame! That is convenience at its best combined with security. This maybe the beginning of the end of passwords and pass codes if other smartphone manufacturers follow suit which I strongly believe they will.
Take for example the point and shoot camera that are slowly vanishing given the quality of pictures on most smartphones getting better by the day and the convenience of taking pictures with a phone instead of carrying a second device in your pocket. Or the home phone for that matter is slowly fading away.......
Best of all is that this could be the beginning of true mobile wallets for mobile payments eliminating the need for credit cards someday. Given Apple has talked about using the TouchID for iTunes and app store purchases, I believe this will surely be followed by combining Passbook app with TouchID for quick online purchases and may be even offline at the retail stores. Combined with blue tooth technology in iPhone or NFC in other phones (like the Fujitsu Regza phones in Japan), placing your finger on the fingerprint sensor can approve payments to a credit card terminal at the checkout lane at the retail or grocery stores. This way next time you go out all you would need is your phone and your drivers license for ID.
Maybe the day is not far when the phone with fingerprint sensor on it is your proof of ID :)
On a historical note, Apple is not the first company to put a fingerprint sensor on a phone. Siemens (Germany) and Sagem (France) experimented with sensors on phones back in 1998 and 2000 respectively but it was Fujitsu of Japan that came out with the commercially successful clam shell (flip) phones that had fingerprint sensors on them in 2003. Fujitsu is the only phone company that has built the most models (30) with fingerprint sensors on them. The japanese already use phones extensively to make mobile payments for purchases at vending machines and at stores. Motorola (Google now) and Fujitsu both announced Android phones back in 2011 with fingerprint sensor. The Motorola Atrix model did not take off and was discontinued but Fujitsu has had some success limited to Japan.
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| Fujitsu F505i - with fingerprint sensor released in 2003 |
Now let's wait and watch if the magic of Apple can make this commonplace the world over......or will it also end up on the heap of cool but discarded technology pile.
Cheers
-Ram
Nice one Ram.
ReplyDeleteApple has a knowledge base article now that describes more on what happens with the fingerprint capture and how it will not impact privacy issues that typically gets raised with such technology.
ReplyDeletehttp://support.apple.com/kb/HT5949