iPad Air 2 also gets Touch ID. Are we heading towards exclusive fingerprint recognition?

According to the latest rumors, Apple’s upcoming iPad will also get the Touch ID sensor, continuing the idea of mobile payments without having to use the classic user and pass. We all know that picturing the scenario leads to Sci-Fi ideas, but the truth is that we are getting there sooner than we think. Thanks to the world’s best mobile engineers, more and more amazing technologies will become accessible. Forecast in the Q3 of 2014, the iPad Air 2 will also include Apple A8 processor. What else to expect? Last week, a report from JP Morgan informed that A8 processor may surpass Intel’s Core i5 processors in performance.

When iPhone 5 was released, it included one of the great features so far called Touch ID. Other attempts of including fingerprint recognition in a smartphone took place before, but they haven’t had much success. iPhone 5 was the first mobile device that officially included this feature and currently can only be found on iOS 7 devices.

Touch ID is a fingerprint recognition feature designed by Apple Inc., that allows users to unlock their phone and make payments in iTunes Store, App Store or iBookstore by using up to five fingerprints stored in the device. This method has been developed as an attempt of exchanging usernames and passwords to fingerprints, which cannot be guessed or copied. The fingerprint information is stored on the Apple A7 chip in the device and it is not cloud-based, so external access is almost impossible.  In regards to the hardware, the feature is built in the home button which is made of laser-cut sapphire crystal, preventing scratching. Right now, the sensor has a thickness of 170 μm, 500 ppi and reading the fingerprints works from whichever position of the finger. Although, Touch ID provoked some headaches at the beginning, as any other new technology does, we expect updates and  improvements along with iOS 7’s updates.

More than 800 million users have iTunes accounts and the majority have registered their credit cards, too. This means that such a technology would make everyone feel safer and more confident about using their credit cards for online payments, more than ever. Of course, this is a business but we could use it! This leak is now more trustworthy than ever, thanks to KGI Security Analyst, Ming-Chi Kuo who predicted the same feature earlier in April for both iPad and iPad Mini. He also predicted some other features in the past that turned out to be more than rumors, so we choose to trust him and wait patiently for the new iPad Air 2 and its surprises.