Another patent application suggests Apple is trying to integrate its Touch ID fingerprint scanning system into the display of its iPhone devices, reports Patently Apple.
The patent application describes a touch display that includes both a graphical display layer and a transparent conductive layer that could sense a user’s touch, and proceeds to explain that the system “may also include a finger biometric sensor carried by the touch display”. The patent application complements a patent Apple was granted in May, which described a system that would mount a fingerprint scanner onto a touch display.
Apple was the major driving force behind the popularization of consumer mobile fingerprint scanners, which some analysts predict will be on virtually all smartphones shipped as early as 2018. But like most other mobile fingerprint scanning systems, Apple’s Touch ID is based on a button separate from the touch display of the smartphone. These recent patent applications suggest that Apple is actively exploring means by which to bring the system into the display itself, thereby allowing it to extend screen space on its mobile devices.
Patently Apple reports that this patent application newly published by the US Patent and Trademark Office was first filed in the second quarter of last year, so it isn’t clear how close Apple may be to bringing it to a new device. Recent reports suggest that the technology won’t appear in this year’s new iPhone, but it could emerge in Apple’s next major redesign of the iPhone.
Source: Patently Apple
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