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"- Using revolving 'scroll wheel' motions on the home button to navigate through multitasking app listings"

Such a shame you can't just touch the screen and perform scrolling actions.

Me thinks it might be preparation for larger screened phones, in the aid of one-handed navigation, etc.

D.
 
Perhaps Apple should fix the Touch ID so that it reliably scans with at least a 60% success rate. Only then should they move on to more ambitious goals. But for now, the darn thing is the coolest yet least functional feature I have ever seen. ever. And I've seen some pretty nice features.:)

I have a 98% success rate. The more you use it, the better it gets. Set it up correctly as well and you won't have an issue.
 
I have been wondering if they would do something like this since I got my 5S. It would be so nice to have the home button also be a trackpad and instead of clicking it to go home or double clicking to bring up multitasking you could just tap the home button.
 
Cool idea about requiring a print per app for permission, but it all seems vaguely familiar.

The world's first retina density smartphone (the 2007 Toshiba Portégé G900) had a swipe fingerprint sensor.

The sensor supported scrolling, and launching different apps with different fingerprints.

The phone even allowed unlocking a nearby laptop over Bluetooth via the phone's sensor.

Wow if it did all that and did it well why isn't Toshiba ruling the smartphone world today?
 
behind the screen would be great, protecting photos and mail with a fingerprint would be awesome. circling my finger on the home button on the other hand sounds dumb.
 
I am assuming the 5s and up will get the touch id on the icons with the next ios. Fingerprint to access texts,emails,photos is awesome! Just touch text messege icon and it automatically scans.
 
I had a trackpad on my Andriod G2 before I switched to an Iphone. This is something I dearly miss and I really hope they bring this function into the new Iphones.

If you're wondering what it's good for, it serves great for selecting specific text that a big fat finger can't always choose.
 
Wow if it did all that and did it well why isn't Toshiba ruling the smartphone world today?

Because there's a whole lot more to PRODUCTS than just raw technology ;). Not to mention doing something, and doing something really well are two entirely different things.
 
This third patent application is the most revealing yet with regard to Touch ID, showing how Apple has envisioned expanding the feature to incorporate trackpad functionalities, tracking movements of a user's finger or thumb over the sensor to navigate through user interfaces on the device's screen. In one example, Apple shows how a user moving his or her finger right to left across the Touch ID home button could pan a map, with a subsequent upward movement across the home button triggering activation of a multitasking interface.

You mean, like how you use one of these?

blackberry-bold-9780.jpg
 
This is awesome. Wonder how long it's going to be until they further significantly decrease the size of the bezel...

I'm excited for the possibility of these features. Don't know about the rest of you trolls.

Call me a troll but other phones do a lot of that today. I even remember my BB800 working like that in 2005.
 
You can label them.

Aha! So you can. Thanks.

It was not obvious. I was looking for a place to change the label while I was setting up the fingerprint. Then when you look at the list you can swipe each one and delete it. I thought that was it -- I didn't notice the Edit button in the top right that you can click on after the fact to edit or delete fingerprints.

Cheers.
 
Wow if it did all that and did it well why isn't Toshiba ruling the smartphone world today?

3" resistive screen, bad batterylife, fingerprint sensor was not really working aaaaaand....
it ran WINDOWS MOBILE!!!!
 
Because there's a whole lot more to PRODUCTS than just raw technology ;). Not to mention doing something, and doing something really well are two entirely different things.

Ha, it was a bit of a rhetorical question. It seems like whenever stuff like this surfaces someone pops in to tell us about some obscure device that had all this technology years ago. But yet more often than not the device is either no longer in existence or the technology was abandoned because of poor implementation (like fingerprint scanners on prior phones).
 
Call me a troll but other phones do a lot of that today. I even remember my BB800 working like that in 2005.

So someone can't be excited about something if another company has already done it? Most consumers couldn't give a crap less who did something first.
 
HTC incredible says hi. I did actually really like that trackpad. Was great for moving the cursor over a letter to correct something in the middle of a word.

htc-verizon-droid-incredible-7.JPG
 
larger screens

allowing functionality to be performed with one hand when the new larger iPhone screens come?
 
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