The news last week that the next iPhone will indeed be delayed until Fall combined substantial gains by Samsung have a lot of
One idea of what such a feature could be is the fingerprint scanning technology that Apple has acquired from embedded security supplier AuthenTec. Expounding on this scenario, Mike Elgan writes, that "the ‘i’ in iPhone will stand for ‘'identity,’" and that Apple as "the world’s great creator of markets… [is] capable of creating the house that everybody lives in." Breathless, but what do you expect from a contributor to Cult of Mac!
Seriously, Elgan has an interesting point. He thinks that the fingerprint tech will be deployed in concert with the long-anticipated NFC chip—which might explain why this has not been incorporated sooner. "I believe Apple sees the NFC chip and fingerprint scanner as part of a Grand Strategy: To use the iPhone as the solution to the digital identity problem," he writes. People have been talking about phones as a basic unit of identity for years, but Elgan thinks the time is (almost) now, and that Apple is the company to do it.
"Apple loves to solve huge, hitherto unsolved problems," Elgan writes. "And there is no problem bigger from a lost-opportunity perspective than digital identity." And he cites a report by The Boston Consulting Group to suggest that the global value of such a solution by 2020 is in the $trillions.
Another intriguing point is how an Apple approach would contrast with
Elgan suggests that this would be the beginning of a multi-device identity method that would allow you to access any of your iCloud (or equivalent) content and settings on any enabled (Apple, but eventually not-just-Apple) device. The fact that iCloud is somewhat broken at present raises the issue of whether the implementation of this feature is the reason (or one of the reasons) for the supposed pushback of the release date for the next iPhone.
On that theme, here is a list of ways that the fingerprint feature could account for the hold up:
- Hardware: Reuters reported a rumor last week that "A supply chain source in Taiwan said Apple was trying to find a coating material that did not interfere with the fingerprint sensor, and this may be causing a delay."
- Manufacturing: The Register (UK) reported an unsubstantiated rumor that Apple had returned 8 million iPhones to Foxconn for not meeting quality standards. There is no indication that the fingerprint mechanism was part of that problem, but it would certainly be a possibility (that is, if the rumor is even true.)
- Software: Even if the hardware aspect were on track, the software that makes the identity functions work—and work with 99.99% reliability that you want for this level of security and potential fraud—might not be ready yet.
- App Testing: As Leap Motion decided to delay the release of their Controller, Apple may have realized that even once the hardware and system level software is working properly, software developers who will have apps that hook into this technology will need time to beta-test their apps so that there is support for the feature on the App Store from day one.
So, to answer the question posed in the headline, yes, if such a feature is in the works, it will be worth the wait, both for Apple and its customers. Many have declared that identity on the web is "broken" and in need of a robust fix. No one has solved this yet because it is a really big problem with many hidden complexities. Apple may well be on the trail and also been temporarily derailed by one or more of these. I expect there will be some clues about these functions at WWDC, but Apple,being Apple, you never know.
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