LONDON: Apple spoiled the idea of Motorola’s Nexus 6 fingerprint sensor. In an interview with UK newspaper The Telegraph, former CEO Dennis Woodside (who now leads Dropbox) reveals that the handset’s dimple was supposed to play home to a discreet recessed sensor, but its supplier couldn’t meet its quality demands. “Apple bought the best supplier,” Woodside explains, “so the second-best supplier was the only one available to everyone else in the industry and they weren’t there yet.” At least Moto didn’t just, know, and throw one in anyway.
Fans have known about Google’s ambitions to match Apple’s TouchID with its own fingerprint solution since December. An Ars Technica investigation of the Nexus 6’s firmware revealed support for the feature was removed late in the development cycle presumably when Motorola worked out the sensor wasn’t up to scratch. Apparently, there was an API that all Android devices and developers could tap into, opening the door to things like payment authentication and app security measures. Given the work that Google’s already put into this, don’t’ be surprised to see such features coming to Android soon.
