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Comment by gfodor | Hacker News Reader

> While they may have implemented Touch ID really well, it's still just yet another way of unlocking the device. Strategically it has little benefit to Apple.

Uh, how many times a day do you perform some type of authentication of your identity? I have a feeling this will be one of those foot-in-mouth statements.

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Haha, I certainly hope so - that's what I meant by my edit above. If Apple pushes this technology across the entire company then only at that time does it become a compelling part of the Apple ecology. If too many services/devices "chicken out" and avoid integrating with Touch ID then Apple will continue to be forced to carry legacy authentication mechanisms, lowest-common-denominator style.

If this tech remains an iPhone (or even just iDevice) only tech, it's a (albeit impressive) party trick. Nothing provided by touch ID can't be eventually replicated by a competitor, patents notwithstanding.

No other OEM is positioned like Apple is to pull this off, but it won't be easy to elevate touch id to how we today perceive something like retina.

It seems that the technology is intrinsically linked to the A7 processor. I hate linking to a Quora article, but this one actually highlights why the A7 is such a leap.

http://www.quora.com/Apple-Secure-Enclave/What-is-Apple%E2%8...

tl;dr;

Apple bought a company that made fingerprint scanners (like the one in the Motorola Atrix HD) and put the secure info in the secure area of the ARM chip, which ARM designed for putting secure info in.

Except make that sound like the moon landing, SpaceX, Tesla and the Oceans 11 heist all rolled into one.

Are we still allowed to call Apple a cult? Or are they a full blown religion now?

> Are we still allowed to call Apple a cult? Or are they a full blown religion now?

What was the point of that?

That I like reading about technology and business, not feel-good fairy stories that people make up about technology and business and (un-?) intentionally obscure the usually more interesting truth?

So don't comment if it doesn't interest you.

Apple stimulates brain's religious responses, claims BBC

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/apple-stimulates-brains-reli...

I guess this isn't true just for Apple, but for other major brands as well.

In other words, you think it's fun to make up a sentence, out of whole cloth, about how Apple is supposedly "making something sound like the moon landing", etc., and then post a troll attack based on what you made up. In addition, all your facts, every single fact in your post, is wrong:

-No, the Touch ID scanner is not like the one in the Motorola Atrix, at all. Totally different and superior technology. The Motorola uses the standard, inferior, straight-line fingerprint sensor that you have to swipe your finger across. These are easily fooled by many methods, including a lifted print or a mold of the user's finger.

-No, it's not an ARM chip; Apple designed the chip. Not ARM. Apple also designed the secure area of the chip; not ARM. It does use ARM CPU cores, yes. Which is different.

Are we allowed to call you a troll yet? Or just content-free and annoying?

Apple hasn't "made it sound" like anything except a fingerprint sensor with good convenience and very good security. Which is what it apparently is. So pipe down, mister.

I was referring to the 1744 word Quora answer that was linked in the post I replied to. Not to Apple's official PR, just one member of their volunteer PR army.

That link also claims that Apple uses a "version of TrustZone" from ARM, which seems highly likely. We'll not hear about it from Apple just like Nuance aren't allowed to talk about the fact that they make the voice for Siri, and just like Samsung screen prints little Apple logos on the chips it makes for them.

But since you're so sure it's not, what's your source?

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