More Durable Touch ID Sensors for iPhone 6, iPad Air, and iPad Mini Coming From TSMC

[Carlanga]

ummm 'tin' to make it more durable Is just new material to start cutting costs and more malleable to make, I believe the current one sans tin is prob better.

 

[wizard]

Care to elaborate? What's wrong with sharing a device (e.g. within one's family), yet keeping personal data / profiles (e.g. bookmarks) separated? Apart from Apple preferring to sell more devices, of course... ;-)

I responded to this in another post but there are real issues which crops up when you try to share computing devices no matter the make nor the operating system.

IOS has its own issues that must be taken into account:

1. The first issue is that you stress the available storage in devices like iPads.
2. Second huge parts of the OS would end up broken and would have to be completely overhauled. App data storage to start, preferences and other features are built around the concept of a single user of the machine.
3. Even simple things like backed up apps become a problem. If yo restore something do you do every bodies data of just the data of the person doing the restore.

In the end I really see nothing to indicate that this has anything to do with Apple selling more hardware. Rather it is all about Apple building a product to support a single user as a personal device. In the end if you need multi user support you purchased the wrong device and simply don't "get it".

----------

Care to explain?

User accounts would be perfect. One iPad for the living room. Both me and my Wife will be able to use it with our own accounts. Whats not to like about this?

Well for one it wastes resources on a device that already needs more resources.

Oh, and Android already does this for tablets...and it works great.

That is an opinion not a fact.

 

[Parasprite]

More poorly written headlines on MacRumors

How?

I'm going to guess that either "More durable" sounds odd to them based on their regional dialect, or they really don't like sentences starting with adverbs.

 

[macs4nw]

TouchId sensors on virtually every Apple computing device and phone is hopefully the much desired end-goal, and this would make for a seamless and elegant experience across all these devices.

Such across-the-board implementation together with super-tightly controlled App integration, as well as that rumored Apple 'mobile payments system', would be very nice indeed. Aaahh, patience…..

 

[Neodym]

Adding user accounts immediately means you have the need for a lot more secondary storage (by the way the iPads already need this extra storage). Apple could and should address the storage issues on these devices but even if they do it is stall a cramped platform to share storae space on.

I doubt that you would need „a lot more secondary storage [immediately]“. As always it depends on the usage scenario, but the typical target group for iPad sharing would be relationships and families. There the additional storage would consist of the individual mails per user, a few additional apps and some bookmark and profile information. I do agree that 16GB could be a tight call and even 32GB might be insufficient, if e.g. all users would want to store huge photo libs on the device. But for the „eMail, Browsing and the occasional casual game“ type of scenario I see no bigger problems.

After all it’s not long ago that Apple sold a full fledged Macbook Air with „only“ 64GB of storage - and that machine is explicitly multi-user capable. The iPad is all about convenience, so for the average user multi-user capabilities using TouchID would be an ideal value-add. Users with higher requirements would opt for something more powerful anyway (or at least know to go for bigger storage).

How will they go about handling app data/files storage? Right now the operating system has the apps storing data within their applicaiton subdirectory. Trying to split this p into seperate and secure directories for each users is a problem.

I see no reason why Apple could not make the necessary adjustments to iOS as they did to MacOS when they introduced multi-user a long time ago. iOS is derived from MacOSX and should be sufficiently matured 7 years after first release. It’s 2014 now and Programmers (should) know what’s necessary to achieve a proper multi-user concept.

Backups are done cleanly in a way that supports all apps. Much of what makes ipad a great single user machine would end up boriken with support for users.

How do you figure? Did MacOS get broken after a multi-user concept was introduced?

IPad and iPhone were never meant to be a multi user device. The way it works is built around the idea of a single users.

So were home computers in the 80’s and into the 90’s, but they evolved and managed to do what was necessary. I see no reason that an iPad and iOS could not do this. As a side note: In my opinion the major reason for making iOS _not_ multi-user were the technological limits that applied some ten years ago when the idea was developed. Today you can cram hardware in that flat slates which outclasses desktop hardware from only a few years ago!

Why give that up just because a few people want to cram a multiuser OS onto the platform. Before answering this, consider how much instantly ends up borken with multi user support.

Done properly nearly nothing has to be broken by multi-user support (except for a short time of transition with a few teething problems). And I believe you massively underestimate how many people would gladly have multi-user support on their iPads. An iPad is all about convenience and it’s quite an expensive piece of hardware. From an economic point of view it makes no sense to purchase two pieces of hardware, when there is no concurrent need and the existing one is far from being loaded to its max capacity.

Would you normally lend somebody your phone to use without your oversight? This comes back to the personal aspect of an iPhone or iPad. Sharing may be a quality parents want to instill into their children but most parents understand that there are limits. iPad is simply a different device requiring a different set of rules for sharing.

Simply NO! An iPad is a modern computer with a halfway modern OS. There is no reason to differentiate between - say - a MacBook Air and an iPad here. Apart from that your comparison is flawed in the first place: It’s not about lending your iDevice to someone else without oversight - that is exactly the point! People want to lend it and have the device taking care of overseeing access rights!

Why try to wedge concepts from the PC world into a device that is obviously not a PC. Lets face it you can buy a Mac Book Air for nearly the same price as a tricked out iPad and get a far better deal when it comes to supporting multiple users.

The more I read your argumentation the more it seems strange to me. Of course an iPad is obviously as good a computer as a low-end Mac mini or MacBook Air. There is absolutely no reason not to introduce multi-user offerings. Even more so, as the (cheaper!) competition seems to already have it.

It would seem to me that they bought the wrong device then or did not buy enough of them.

A little snobbish, now - aren’t we? Just for the record: I do own an iPad Air w/ 128GB of storage and would like to have multi-user with TouchID - would make me update to an iPad Air 2 instantly. I could easily afford to purchase another iPad as workaround, but don’t see any compelling reason to do so just because Apple is too lazy to implement a proper multi-user concept. I’m sure many people share this opinion.

The big problem with iPad in my experience though is that you would loose excessive amounts of space if you where to support multiple users. In the end I really don't see a way for Apple to do anything other than to support multiple storage locations (for multiple users) for things like iTunes, E-mail and the like. This would kill available storage.

I still fail to follow that argumentation chain. Perhaps _you_ store massive amounts of data on _your_ iPad and thus can’t imagine ever sharing it. The _majority_ of people, however, are far from coming close to the boundaries of available storage.

If the iPad "must" be shared then obviously the wrong device was purchased.

Obvious is only that you seem to consider your use case as universally valid - which it is not. The „must“ is probably fueled by economic considerations: It makes no sense economically to have an expensive machinery sitting around unused for long periods of time, with a sufficiently capable hardware, and not try to improve load (usage) times.

 

[bnmcj1]

That sensor is just too big to be on any device today. 2014 is no bezel time. No need for a home button with active display tech. Ridicolous bloat-design.

 

[cocky jeremy]

Touch ID sensors in future MacBooks? How about a Touch ID sensor in the Apple Keyboard, Mouse and Trackpad?

EXACTLY what I want.

 

[RoccoFan]

No love for iPods in general

no love for iPod touch ?

Can't get a storage bump. Can't get touch ID. Can't get any love in general.

 

[usersince86]

More importantly, hope it works just as good when we see these 3rd party apps start to take advantage.

Good point; me too.

 

[ThatsMeRight]

No issues with my sensor yet. But if there were, Apple's extraordinary support team would fix/replace it for free.

If only Apple's support team was as extraordinary abroad as they are in the United States. I've almost waited 2 weeks now for my iPhone 5 to get repaired.

And based on previous experiences with Apple's repair team, I am already thinking there is a 50% chance that my device will still be defect when they have 'repaired' it.

I read a lot of stories of great support from Apple in the United States, but in my experience - abroad - they are one of the worst.

Apple devices are great when they work, but if there is some sort of defect (within warranty), I already fear the bad support.

 

[distemp]

TouchID works like crap so I'd rather they didn't bother putting it into more devices until it works like it should. I see "try again" way more than I see an unlocked phone.

Also, the fact that we have someone here arguing, multiple times, AGAINST the inclusion of user accounts for the iPad is so sad. Guys, it's fine to disagree with Apple. Really.

 

[Sparkey03]

Thanks wizard

As above Wizard thanks for taking the time to explain your viewpoint to me. I can see the difficulties of some of the points you make but with Apple's resources and experience with desktop macs solving them would be a walk in the park for them.

Time will tell but I think touchID is what Apple have been waiting for to make multi-user support simple enough. To be honest I think it is a little naive to think people who want to share an IPad bought the wrong device, I doubt very much Apple's marketing team would share that view

Although on the other side of the coin they are progressing with the likes of home share which suggests pooling assets in the cloud rather than individual devices so only time will tell. Do agree the case for sharing on a phone is very weak.

Ta.

 

[Tech198]

120 million in 2014...

..... That's allot of sensors...

I just hope we don't find the iPhone soon crammed with as many senors as a swiss army knife has gadgets.

But knowing Apple, i would expect everything, and anything.

120 million in 2014...

..... That's allot of sensors...

I just hope we don't find the iPhone soon crammed with as many sensors as a swiss army knife has gadgets.

 

[69Mustang]

As above Wizard thanks for taking the time to explain your viewpoint to me. I can see the difficulties of some of the points you make but with Apple's resources and experience with desktop macs solving them would be a walk in the park for them.

Time will tell but I think touchID is what Apple have been waiting for to make multi-user support simple enough. To be honest I think it is a little naive to think people who want to share an IPad bought the wrong device, I doubt very much Apple's marketing team would share that view

Although on the other side of the coin they are progressing with the likes of home share which suggests pooling assets in the cloud rather than individual devices so only time will tell. Do agree the case for sharing on a phone is very weak.

Ta.

It was nice of wizard to take the time to explain his thoughts, no matter how flawed they were. Throwing the iPhone into the discussion with the iPad was a bit of a strawman in my opinion. No one has been asking for multi-user on a phone. That has been a tablet request. Apple has been doing multi-user on OSX for years and the transition to iOS would not be that great. MS and Samsung figured it out. Does wizard think the braintrust at Apple couldn't do it just as well? iPads are a perfect vehicle for multi-user and Apple has the know how. Whether or not they want to implement it is another question altogether. If they did I would update my iPad2 immediately. Without it, there's nothing compelling to me in the later devices to make me upgrade.