iPhone 6: Fingerprint sensor included?
IPhone 6 fingerprint sensor rumored to be included in the next iPhone, as early as June. Besides the iPhone 6 fingerprint technology, there are also reports of a bigger screen iPhone.
People pause in front of the Apple store's logo on the balcony at Grand Central Terminal in New York. The latest feature rumored to be on the next Apple iPhone? A fingerprint sensor for security.
(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
The latest iPhone rumor is that the iPhone 5s, sometimes dubbed the iPhone 6, will include a fingerprint detector.
The source? KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a good track record for predicting when new Apple products will launch, says that Apple's next iPhone 6 (a.k.a 5s) will include a fingerprint sensor for security. He's saying this next version of the Apple smartphone could launch in June or July, which would be ahead of the typical fall release schedule. Kuo also thinks that the iPhone 5S will have an improved camera and will have a more powerful A7 chip, according to ComputerWorld in Singapore.
The arrival of an iPhone fingerprint sensor shouldn't come as too big of a surprise. Earlier this year, Apple purchased AuthenTec, a mobile network security for about $356 million. One of AuthenTec's key products: fingerprint sensors.
But neither Apple nor AuthenTec are alone in this field. As LAPTOP reported last week, Validity Sensors, a company that supplies fingerprint readers to the PC market, is moving into mobile too.
At CES last week, Validity Director of Technical Marketing Dough Vargha showed off a Samsung Android phone [with fingerprint sensor] ... "Not only does that provide a simple user experience, [but] it also is high security," he told us. "It's easy to hack a four-digit PIN, but a fingerprint belongs to you and you only." Vargha explained that fingerprint authentication, which Validity calls "Natural Login," will be used not only to log into a device, but also to validate ecommerce transactions.
As long as we're talking Apple iPhone rumors, The Christian Science Monitor's Matt Shaer reported Monday that there are reports of a larger iPhone in the works. It's a new 4.8-inch smart phone tentatively dubbed the "iPhone Math." The current iPhone 5 has a 4 inch screen.
'Although former Apple CEO Steve Jobs once said 3.5-inches was the perfect size for a smartphone display, Apple expanded the display from 3.5 inches to 4 inches for the iPhone 5 – an attempt to keep up with massive gadgets such as the HTC Droid DNA and Samsung Galaxy S III."