How Touch ID thwarted Motorola's plans to incorporate fingerprint technology on the Nexus 6
Apple's 2012 acquisition of the fingerprint technology firm AuthenTec reportedly thwarted Motorola's plans to incorporate fingerprint recognition into the Nexus 6. The news comes straight from former Motorola Mobility CEO Dennis Woodside who explained as much during a recent interview with The Telegraph.
Indeed, the 6-inch Nexus 6, he can now admit, was stymied by just one of those big players. A dimple on the back that helps users hold the device should, in fact, have been rather more sophisticated. "The secret behind that is that it was supposed to be fingerprint recognition, and Apple bought the best supplier. So the second best supplier was the only one available to everyone else in the industry and they weren't there yet," says Woodside. Nonetheless, he adds, the addition of fingerprint recognition, "wouldn't have made that big a difference.
Interestingly enough, if one goes back and looks at the inside story behind Apple's acquisition of AuthenTec, one finds that that the US$356 million purchase was quite the frenzied affair. Negotiations between Apple and the Australian-based AuthenTec began in earnest in February 2012 with Apple making it clear that it wanted to seal the deal as quickly as possible. In somewhat classic Apple negotiating fashion, the folks in Cupertino indicated that they were dead serious about the deal and had no interest in getting into a protracted bidding war. As a result, Apple said that if AuthenTec wanted to start soliciting bids from other major tech players, it would rescind its offer.
Apple and AuthenTec ultimately inked a deal in July of 2012. A little more than a year later, Touch ID was introduced with the iPhone 5s. Since then, no company has yet been able to implement a fingerprint authorization scheme that can match the reliability and ease of use of Touch ID.
