touch id
Latest
The Magic Keyboard with Touch ID is now available separately for $149
A version with a number pad is available for $179.
Apple is bringing Touch ID to the new iMacs
This marks the debut of Touch ID in Apple's desktop line.
Safari will use Face ID and Touch ID for 'frictionless' web sign-ins
The next version of Safari will let you use Face ID or Touch ID to sign in to websites without entering your password.
Apple tests iCloud.com sign-ins with your face or finger
The iCloud website is handy when you want to check info from an unfamiliar device or just prefer to use a browser, but the need to enter your password could be enough of a pain that you might just pull out your phone instead. Soon, though, it could be relatively effortless. The company is testing a beta iCloud site that uses Face ID or Touch ID to sign you in. You'll need a beta version of iOS 13, iPadOS or macOS Catalina, but after that it's just a matter of using your face or finger to sign in with compatible Apple gear.
RBS and NatWest add Touch ID login to their banking apps
If you manage your personal finances from a smartphone, you'll be familiar with the tiresome verification procedures that banks use to double-check your identity. To make everything a little simpler, RBS and NatWest are introducing Touch ID support to their iOS banking apps tomorrow. So rather than punching in a long-winded passcode, you'll just need a fingerprint to log in to your account. The feature is entirely optional though, so if you're worried that Touch ID isn't quite secure enough to protect your lifelong savings, it can easily be disabled on your iPhone 5S, 6 or 6 Plus. More importantly, the BBC reports that some in-app features will still require additional verification and, similar to contactless credit and debit cards, there will be an upper limit for new payments. So even if a crafty crook copies your fingerprint, most of the app should remain under lock and key.
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.
MacID: Unlock your Mac with Touch ID
Even though my 27-inch iMac is in my home office and usually not apt to be "played with" by unauthorized personnel other than my cats, I make sure that it auto-locks whenever I'm away from the keyboard for even a few minutes. Of course, that means entering my long and ever-changing password every time I need to get back to work, and I've often wished that the iMac had a Touch ID pad. Well, with the new MacID app (US$3.99), the iMac now has the next best thing - it can be unlocked from my iPhone with just a tap on Touch ID. The app is a cinch to set up. It's a fast download from the App Store, and there's a companion app for Mac that you download for free from developer Kane Cheshire's website. Run the app on your Mac, identify the iOS device you want to use as a "key" for your Mac, then enter your Mac's password twice. That's it. The Mac app runs in background and is loaded automatically when the machine boots up. For the iOS app, it's a simple matter of launching, then selecting the Mac you wish to authorize. Now when your Mac is locked and you wake it with a tap on a the touchpad or keyboard, you receive a notification on your iOS device. You authorize the unlocking of the Mac with a simple swipe and tap on the Touch ID pad. An extra added feature is that if you don't have your iPhone or iPad nearby but do have a Magic Trackpad, you can set up Tap To Unlock, which uses a pre-set pattern of finger taps (like two fingers, one finger, three fingers) to authorize unlocking the Mac. I found MacID to work very well... until it didn't. At one point it didn't seem to be talking to my iPhone, although both the Mac and iOS apps were showing that they were in communications with each other. Well, it's a version 1.0 app, so a bug must have slipped through... A quick shutdown and relaunch of the Mac app made everything groovy again. Unlike the old Knock app (also $3.99), you don't need to knock on your iPhone to unlock your device. But like that app, it's a great way to keep prying eyes away from your Mac and still be able to unlock it very quickly. MacID works with any Mac or iOS device that supports Bluetooth LE, which includes the 2011 and newer MacBook Air, 2012 and newer MacBook Pro, 2012 and newer iMac, 2011 and newer Mac mini, and the 2013 and newer Mac Pro. On the iOS side, MacID supports pretty much any device with Touch ID, and works with a passcode on those devices without Touch ID - supported are the iPhone 4S and newer, iPad mini (any generation), iPad Air (any generation), iPad 4, and iPod touch (5th generation).
7-year-old boy cleverly thwarts Apple's iPhone security measures
Matthew Green, cryptography professor at Johns Hopkins, knows all about iPhone security and apparently so does his 7-year-old son, Harrison. According to CNN Money, the child was able to bypass Apple's Touch ID security measures and access Angry Birds Transformers using a simple physical attack. But Tuesday morning at dawn, little Harrison crept into his parents' bedroom and walked over to his dad's side of the bed. He quietly reached for his father's iPhone, grabbed his right hand and pressed his large thumb onto the fingerprint scanner. Apple recently increased iPhone and iPad security in iOS 8, encrypting data by default and protecting it in such a way that nobody, except the original owner, can access it via passcode or the biometrics of Touch ID. This improved security has caught the attention of the FBI, which claims these new security measures will hinder investigations and assist criminals. A recent court decision lessened the impact of this security, ruling that Touch ID was not protected by the Fifth Amendment.
Touch ID for your Mac ... sorta
Apple's Touch ID biometric authentication has one very bad side effect on users - when you start using it regularly, you want to unlock everything with your fingerprint. Apple hasn't built a Touch ID pad into Macs yet, but an iOS app called FingerKey (US$1.99) attempts to make up for that oversight. The app uses Bluetooth 4.0 to communicate authentication info to your favorite Mac wirelessly, and although the app works on any iPhone with Bluetooth 4.0 built in (iPhone 4s and beyond), it of course only allows that fingerprint unlocking with Touch ID-equipped phones. You'll also need to install an app on the receiving end, AKA your Mac. That free app is called FingerLock, and it's available from the developer's website. It works with Bluetooth 4.0-equipped Macs right now; the developer is working on similar software for Windows and Linux. Your password is secured by AES 256-bit encryption the entire time it is being stored and exchanged with your computer, so things are relatively secure - much better than writing your password on a Post-it® Note and sticking it to your monitor. The app is currently a 1.0 release, and there are apparently some issues with the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus that are causing "connection difficulties". Those issues are leaving it with less-than-stellar ratings on the App Store, but then again, even amazingly good apps get crappy ratings sometimes. FingerKey is a cool idea, and it will hopefully keep Mac users happy until Apple releases a Touch ID-equipped Magic Mouse, Magic Trackpad, and all MacBooks come with a little Touch ID ring.
Court rules: Touch ID is not protected by the Fifth Amendment but Passcodes are
Advances in technology always make for interesting interpretations of established law. Most recently, a Virginia Beach Circuit Court this week ruled that an individual in a criminal proceeding cannot be forced to divulge the passcode to his cellphone as it would violate the self-incrimination clause of the Fifth Amendment. At the same time, the Court held that an individual can be compelled to give up his fingerprint to unlock Touch ID, or any fingerprint protected device for that matter. The Court reasoned that while a passcode requires a defendant to divulge actual knowledge, a fingerprint is a form of physical evidence, akin to a handwriting sample or DNA that authorities are already legally allowed to demand in certain circumstances. In a similar vein, the Supreme Court has previously ruled that while authorities can compel an individual to hand over a physical key to a locked safe, they can't compel an individual to provide them with a combination to said safe; the key in this example is nothing more than physical evidence while the combination, based on an individual's unique knowledge, is categorized as "testimonial." Mashable adds: "It's exactly what we thought it would happen when Apple announced its fingerprint ID," Hanni Fakhoury, a staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights organization, told Mashable. (Android phones such as the Galaxy S5 and HTC One Max also have fingerprint ID systems.) While the ruling in Virginia Beach is not as binding as a Supreme Court decision, it does establish legal precedent other local courts can draw on. More importantly, "it's just a good wake-up call for people to realize that fingerprint ID doesn't necessarily provide the same sort of legal protection than a password does," Fakhoury says. The ruling shouldn't be taken to mean that it's now open season on Touch ID enabled iPhones. Keep in mind that when Touch ID hasn't been used for 48 hours, a passcode, in addition to a fingerprint, is required in order to unlock a device. As relayed by The Virginian-Pilot, the ruling stems from a case involving a man charged with strangling his girlfriend. Authorities had reason to believe that video footage of the couple's altercation might be located on the defendant's cellphone and "wanted a judge to force" the defendant hand over the passcode.
Dropbox's iOS 8 app adds support for Touch ID
Not to be outdone by Microsoft's recent refresh of OneDrive, Dropbox has now made its iOS app compatible with Apple's fingerprint-scanning technology, Touch ID, as well. You'll need iOS 8 in order for the feature to work, but chances are you're already running the latest and greatest software from Apple anyway. Aside from adding the ability to unlock the application by way of Touch ID, Dropbox also updated it to support the bigger screens of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus -- something that owners of Apple's newest smartphones will definitely appreciate. Now someone tell Google to hurry and do the same for Drive.
The TUAW Daily Update Podcast for July 15, 2014
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get some the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the player at the top of the page. Be sure that your podcast software is set up to subscribe to the new feed in the iTunes Store here.
U.S. Patent office refuses to grant Apple's "Touch ID" trademark
The term "Touch ID" is now synonymous with Apple's flagship iPhone, but don't tell that to the United States Patent & Trademark Office. In a letter published on Sunday, the agency ruled that granting Apple the trademark would lead to a "likelihood of confusion" among consumers due to an existing "Touch ID" trademark held by enterprise management company Kronos. Among its other offerings, Kronos manufactures biometric terminals for large companies. These terminals function as time clocks for employees, letting workers sign in with a scan of their finger. The company refers to these as "Touch ID terminals," and it has held the trademark since 2003, long before Apple dreamt up a fingerprint-scanning home button. At this point, Apple has another six months to decide its next course of action. It can either change the feature's name -- unlikely -- or buy the trademark off Kronos for whatever figure the two companies agree on. The latter seems like a no-brainer, given that Apple has already built Touch ID into its own sub-brand thanks to TV ads and plenty of boasting. Oh, and Apple has a lot of money, so the actual "purchasing" part shouldn't be a problem, either.
PayPal already exploring integrating Touch ID into their mobile payment app
With Apple in iOS 8 extending Touch ID functionality to third parties, Business Insider reports that PayPal is already exploring the possibility of having users authorize payments via their own fingerprint instead of with a password. It has since been confirmed by PayPal's Anuj Nayar that the digital payment company did in fact send a team of developers to WWDC where they attended a Touch ID workshop. Yesterday, a team of PayPal developers attended a session on Touch ID, Apple's fingerprint-scanning system, at the company's annual Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, a PayPal source told us. ... "It seems to be a fairly easy API to use, but we're still kicking the tires," the PayPal source tells us. Note that PayPal's app wouldn't have direct access to a user's fingerprint data, but would rather receive a "yes/no" verification as to the fingerprint's authenticity from the core OS. Touch ID initially launched as the flagship feature on the iPhone 5s last year, and while the initial rollout was fraught with misguided paranoia, the feature has quickly become an understated, accepted, and potentially powerful part of the iOS ecosystem.
Apple promises $2M to help Bay Area host Super Bowl 50 and more news from June 6, 2014
Friday is usually a slow news day in the tech world, but not today. We have a heapin' helpin' of hot Apple news to serve up: Apple CEO Tim Cook is a huge football fan, being both a supporter of Auburn University's Tigers and a member of the board of directors of the National Football Foundation. And now, the company he leads has promised US$2 million towards helping the Bay Area host the 50th National Football League championship game, AKA "Super Bowl L" (yeah, that Roman number 50 looks odd...). Google, Yahoo, Intel and other companies have also chipped in, and if all works out for the organizing committee, the 2016 Super Bowl could be held at the soon-to-be-opened Levi's Stadium (see image at top) in Santa Clara, CA. PayPal's talking about using Apple's Touch ID capabilities in its iOS apps as soon as possible. Apple has opened up the Touch ID APIs to developers in iOS 8, opening the door for the mobile payment giant to take advantage of Apple's fingerprint security technology. Rumor has it that Apple will begin building Touch ID into every iOS device announced beginning this year. Apple executives Tim Cook and Eddy Cue were on hand in Austin, TX yesterday for an opening celebration of the new Apple campus there. The new buildings host Apple support, engineering, and operations facilities, and are just the first of a planned expansion that won't be completed until 2021. Remember the Vaavud wind meter for iOS devices that TUAW reviewed last August? The manufacturer is hosting an outdoor adventure video competition, with applicants sharing adventures using the Vaavud in the most creative and adventurous situations. Here's your chance to win prizes from more Vaavud wind meters all the way up to a DJI Phantom 2 Quadcopter. The folks over at 9to5Mac are reporting that HealthKit apparently supports some Bluetooth health accessories natively, meaning that the manufacturers no longer have to supply their own apps along with the devices.
Tim Cook calls mobile payments an "interesting area" in new WSJ interview
In the wake of Apple's stellar earnings report, CEO Tim Cook sat down for a brief interview with the Wall Street Journal. Echoing a sentiment he put forth during the company's earnings conference call, Cook explained Apple's underlying goal is to release the best products as opposed to rushing products to market as quickly as possible. "To do things really well, it takes time," Cook explained. "You can see a lot of products that have been brought to market where the thinking isn't really deep and, as a consequence, these things don't do very well." While Cook of course didn't spill the beans as to any upcoming products or services, he did reference the fact that Apple has nearly 800 million consumer credit cards on file and that mobile payments is an "interesting area." I think it's a really interesting area. We have almost 800 million iTunes accounts and the majority of those have credit cards behind them. We already have people using Touch ID to buy things across our store, so it's an area of interest to us. And it's an area where nobody has figured it out yet. I realize that there are some companies playing in it, but you still have a wallet in your back pocket and I do too which probably means it hasn't been figured out just yet. And lest anyone think that Cook is just casually discussing areas he finds somewhat interesting, note that this isn't the first time Cook has brought up mobile payments. In fact, during Apple's last earnings conference call, Cook flat out said that Apple finds mobile payments "intriguing" and that "it was one of the thoughts behind Touch ID." While no Apple product or service is ever a sure thing until an Apple executive takes the stage and announces it, it's worth highlighting a recent report from Re/Code which claims that Apple in recent weeks has been interviewing experienced executives from the payments industry. The company has been meeting with potential applicants for two new positions at Apple focused exclusively on building a business around the hundreds of millions of credit cards it already has on file. Apple is seeking to fill head of product and head of business development positions... Lastly, Cook had this to say about Apple's upcoming product line: "I feel great about what we've got coming. Really great and it's closer than it's ever been."
Video shootout: Apple's Touch ID vs Samsung Galaxy S 5's fingerprint sensor
In July of 2012, Apple spent $356 million to acquire a mobile security firm called AuthenTec. A year later, the fruits of that acquisition manifested in Apple's Touch ID, the flagship feature on the iPhone 5s. Though Touch ID initially generated a bizarre circle of paranoia, folks have seemingly come back down to earth after finding that Touch ID, by and large, works quietly and works well. In just a few weeks, Samsung's Galaxy S5 will hit store shelves and, whadya know, Samsung's latest flagship device features a fingerprint authorization scheme all its own. The video below highlights the fingerprint set-up process for each device while also comparing the accuracy and usability of each device's fingerprint sensor. Seeing as there are already innumerable videos and articles detailing Touch ID, here's what the video had to say about the S5's fingerprint sensor. It seems like it's sort of hit or miss unless you swipe directly over the center of the button, covering most of it with your finger. Moreover because you have to swipe starting from the bottom of the touchscreen it makes the process nearly impossible with one hand. All that notwithstanding, fingerprint security on the S5 appears to work fine while being just a tad less intuitive than Apple's own implementation. Lastly, it's worth noting that the fingerprint scanner on the Galaxy S5 has a bit more functionality than Touch ID insofar as the former will be available to third-party developers and can also be used to authorize PayPal transactions.
Daily Roundup: Apple explains Touch ID, Google's modular phone and more!
You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.
The TUAW Daily Update Podcast for February 27, 2014
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get some the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the player at the top of the page. The Daily Update has been moved to a new podcast host in the past few days. Current listeners should delete the old podcast subscription and subscribe to the new feed in the iTunes Store here.
Why did Apple's Touch ID elicit paranoia while Samsung's Galaxy S5 flies under the radar?
When Apple first announced the Touch ID feature for the iPhone 5s, we were treated to a few weeks of misplaced paranoia that, if you didn't know any better, would have you believe that Apple was stockpiling user fingerprint data with the intention of selling them to the highest bidder. Despite a number of security precautions Apple implemented with Touch ID, many in the blogosphere were quick to ring alarm bells. Senator Al Franken even went so far as to write a letter to Tim Cook airing his concerns. It reads in part: What's more, a password doesn't uniquely identify its owner-a fingerprint does. Let me put it this way: if hackers get a hold of your thumbprint, they could use it to identify and impersonate you for the rest of your life. And then there were the endless stream of articles detailing the myriad number of ways people might be able to easily spoof a Touch ID user's fingerprint. The epitome of this bizarre paranoia came in the form of a unintentionally comical Toronto Star article which listed 10 reasons why Apple's Touch ID is a "bad idea." Yet oddly enough, when Samsung unveiled the Galaxy S5 earlier this week with its own fingerprint authorization scheme, no one seemed to pay it any mind. Never mind the fact that Samsung's fingerprint sensor will be available to third-party developers and that the company announced a partnership with PayPal to enable mobile purchasing. In short, Samsung is clearly going all in while Apple, in typical fashion, decided to take a more measured approach. TechCrunch writes: Apple went to great lengths to emphasize just how segmented its fingerprint scanner was from the rest of the hardware, and how isolated (read: protected from hackers) the data that it gathered was. Fingerprint information collected by the iPhone 5s scanner hardware built into Apple's home button is held on a 'secure enclave' within the A7 system-on-a-chip, and communicated to other services only as an encrypted alias that conveys no sensitive data. Now I don't think any of the brouhaha surrounding Apple's Touch ID was warranted, nor do I think Samsung should be put through the ringer for its implementation. But as John Gruber essentially asks, isn't it bizarre that Apple's Touch ID resulted in a storm of paranoia while a similar feature from Samsung seemingly flies under the radar? But how come so many people lost their sh*t over the clearly more-secure iPhone fingerprint sensor, and there's not a peep about Samsung's? Where's the letter to Samsung from Senator Al Franken? Looking ahead, it stands to reason that Apple has its eyes on expanding the scope of Touch ID beyond its current ability to authorize iTunes purchases. During Apple's most recent earnings conference call, Tim Cook said flat-out that mobile payments was one of the underlying ideas behind Touch ID. "The mobile payments area in general is one that we've been intrigued with," Cook told analysts last month. "It was one of the thoughts behind Touch ID." That said, it'll be really interesting to see how the media responds to any future Apple announcements regarding the expansion of Touch ID. I wonder what the Vegas odds are on Al Franken penning a letter to Tim Cook once again.
