On the day of Apple's 4K iMac release, they were granted a patent where they could place Touch ID, the company's fingerprint scanner technology found on each iPhone since the 5S and each iPad since the Air 2, in the Mac. The funny thing is, Apple filed for this patent all the way back in 2007, shortly after announcing the original iPhone.
In the patent, this picture is brought into play:
In the patent, this picture is brought into play:
Although the patent was filed in 2007, it appears that this drawing of a laptop with a fingerprint scanner comes...
A finger sensing apparatus may include a finger sensor including an integrated circuit (IC) substrate, an array of finger sensing elements on the IC substrate, and match circuitry on the IC substrate for performing final finger matching. […] FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an electronic device in the form of a laptop computer including a finger sensor and enhanced security in accordance with the present invention.
The patent also covers use in desktop computers, aka the iMac today, embedding the sensor into the keyboard…
The computer 10 is illustratively shown to be a laptop computer, but the present invention is applicable to other computers (e.g. desktop computers) as well.
It would be no surprise to see next year's lineup of Macs include Touch ID considering Apple was just granted this patent and the fact that Touch ID has been around for some time now. Plus, other manufacturers like Microsoft are beginning to implant fingerprint scanners into their laptops.
It's kind of a shame, though. They kind of just missed an opportunity to place it into some Macs that came out today alongside new accessories. Oh well...
It's kind of a shame, though. They kind of just missed an opportunity to place it into some Macs that came out today alongside new accessories. Oh well...
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