Kellen
Former Motorola CEO and current Dropbox COO Dennis Woodside sat down recently for a brief chat with The Telegraph to discuss his current role, but also make a comment about the Nexus 6 that may interest a number of you. Woodside’s comment refers specifically to the dimple on the back of the phone, a dimple that was originally supposed to add functionality to the device like many had speculated, only never ended up there because of Apple.
According to Dennis, the plan for the dimple on the Nexus 6 (and presumably, Moto X too) was to make it more than a comfortable location to place your finger as you hold the phone – that dimple was supposed to house a fingerprint sensor. Unfortunately for all of us, Apple bought the company who made/makes the best fingerprint sensor technology, a technology which is now in use in the iPhone 6 as Touch ID. That company, is AuthenTec.
Woodside noted that after Apple picked up AuthenTec, the rest of the industry was stuck with the second best supplier of fingerprint sensor technology and “they weren’t there yet.” Basically, AuthenTec was doing fingerprint scanning right and all of the other players weren’t, so Motorola ditched the idea for the dimple.
As someone who has reviewed the iPhone 6 with Touch ID, I can tell you that this really is too bad for Motorola phone owners. Touch ID and the technology behind it from AuthenTec, is amazing. A simple gentle rest of your finger on the iPhone 6’s home button allows the technology to scan your finger and unlock your secure phone in a second or two. There isn’t a janky swipe required that works almost never, like you see on the Galaxy S5. As someone who typically doesn’t use a pin or password on my Android phones, I never found a good reason not to use Touch ID to secure my iPhone 6, because well, it’s that simple and works that good. The addition of a fingerprint sensor to Motorola’s dimple would have been fantastic.
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