iPhone 5 likely to feature fingerprint technology

Yesterday, Apple gained some serious ground in making themselves more appealing to enterprise customers, when they acquired Authentec for £227m. The technology this gives them access to revolves around using fingerprint detection to securely make mobile wallet payments.

With the once-upon-a-time everyone’s favourite enterprise phone, the Blackberry, looking set to lose many of its corporate customers, Apple and Android are competing to make their phones ready to fill the gap left by RIM.

The acquisition of the technology at this time also suggests that Apple could be looking to incorporate it into their next-gen iPhone, which is rumoured to be getting a September or October release. So we could be looking at fingerprint scanners that will allow users to make NFC and e-wallet-based payments using their phones.

Ovum analyst Tony Cripps predicts that Apple are likely to make more acquisitions in the current market climate.

“I suspect more acquisitions are likely,” he said. “While Apple has a massive base of loyal users, it has some clear gaps in its armoury, particularly with apps and online services – something it has tried to shore up with the iCloud, for example.

“But it is still leaving gaps some rivals are benefiting from – for example Apple recently announced it was developing its own mapping platform, presumably to kick Google out.”

[Source: Product Reviews]