Will Samsung release a phone with a fingerprint scanner next year?
Apple has done it, so you can expect pretty much everyone else to follow sooner or later. The latest report out of Reuters suggests the Korean electronics manufacturer will look to create a smartphone with a fingerprint scanner at some point in 2014. Fingerprint Cards’ CEO Johan Carlstrom let that much slip, noting that his company hoped to be one of the players OEMs looked to for components and development for the fingerprint scanners.
We are obviously taking the report with a grain of salt, but it wouldn’t be difficult to believe such a thing is in the works. HTC didn’t take long to get on the fingerprint bandwagon with the launch of the HTC One Max, and other OEMs have been talking up the use of the technology in upcoming devices for quite some time.
Fingerprint scanners provide another layer of security that many paranoid security buffs will appreciate, but most companies will want to find a way to differentiate their own solutions for purposes of marketing. HTC’s One Max does this with the ability to launch into different apps depending on which finger is scanned. It will take that level of innovation and ingenuity for companies to make consumers believe that their fingerprint scanner is the bee’s knees compared to the competition.
If Samsung does, in fact, introduce a smartphone with a fingerprint scanner next year, it’s not a foregone conclusion that it would be available to us in the Samsung Galaxy S5 or the next Galaxy Note. Samsung typically introduces new features in off-shoot devices, such as the metal chassis of the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active, the optical zoom lens inside the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom, and the curved body of the Samsung Galaxy Round.
We wouldn’t be surprised to see something like a “Samsung Galaxy Swipe” or some other weird device launched with the purpose of testing out the technology. We’re getting a bit too far ahead of ourselves, though — we’re not even 100% sure that this will come to fruition.