A growing number of users are complaining about the inability to use Touch ID fingerprint scanning to authorize purchases in the App Store after updating to iOS 8.3.
As reported on Twitter, Reddit and detailed in a thread on Apple's Support Communities forums, iOS 8.3 appears to be asking for an Apple ID password for each and every purchase made in the App Store.
This is regardless of whether or not the option to use Touch ID in the App Store is enabled in Settings. What gives?
As reported Wednesday by BBC News, two banks in the United Kingdom will soon allow their customers access their bank accounts using Touch ID-based fingerprint identification technology, a UK first.
“RBS and NatWest customers must activate the feature with their security information, but would only need to use Apple's Touch ID thereafter,” reports the BBC.
To protect their customers' sensitive financial information and mitigate risk, the banks have put a number of restrictions in place to augment Apple's existing Touch ID safeguards.
Apple's revisions to the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro notebooks, as well as next-generation versions of the wireless $69 Magic Mouse and the multi-touch enabled $69 Magic Trackpad, could soon gain an embedded Touch ID sensor for fingerprint identification, if a rumor posted Tuesday by Taiwanese blog Apple.club.tw is anything to go by. The site is alleging that Apple wants to bring its payment service from the confines of iOS-powered mobile devices to your desktop.
It's odd to think about, but did you know that the Touch ID sensor on your iPhone makes noise? If you hold an iPhone 6 or 6 Plus up to your ear in a quiet room and touch the Touch ID sensor, then you will hear a very faint clicking sound emitting from the vicinity of the sensor. It's just another weird fact gleaned from the /r/apple this morning.
In a note to clients obtained Monday by AppleInsider, revered analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is predicting that the next iPhone will have a much improved and more reliable Touch ID fingerprint sensor that will “offer a better and safer Apple Pay user experience by reducing reading errors."
An analyst with KGI Securities, Kuo is plugged deeply into Apple's supply chain and has proven reliable.
Thanks to Bluetooth LE connectivity, users are able to connect their smartphones to their computers to share content between devices quickly, easily, and without being too taxing for battery life. On iOS and OS X, you can even do stuff like lock or unlock your Mac. Mac ID for iOS is one such app. Not only can you set it up to unlock your computer, but you can also lock it and wake the screen remotely. We’ve got a hands-on review of MacID for iOS for you today.
Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S6 flagship smartphone will include a much-improved fingerprint sensor which takes cues from Apple's Touch ID in that it will recognize a fingerprint when a user places their fingertip on the Home button, according to an unverified report last week by SamMobile.
The Galaxy S5 made some noise by adding a fingerprint sensor that requires users to swipe their finger on the sensor. It didn't win praise for quality or innovation as reviewers were quick to pan it due to inaccurate and unreliable performance, which ultimately frustrated the users.
Thursday, the United States Patent and Trademark Office published a very interesting and curious patent application by Apple which describes a technology seeking to synchronize Touch ID fingerprint data between devices through iCloud.
Titled “Finger biometric sensor data synchronization via a cloud computing device and related methods,” the invention would permit biometric data to be collected on a primary device, say your iPhone, and then uploaded to iCloud for dissemination to secondary devices.
There are tweaks that exist on Cydia that allow you to secure an entire app, but to my knowledge, no tweak yet exists that allows you to secure specific aspects of the stock Photos app with Touch ID. That's where Photego comes in, a new jailbreak tweak that allows you to prevent users from deleting photos, accessing albums, and more via Touch ID.
Admittedly, Touch ID has popularized and mainstreamed biometric security on mobile devices using an impression made on a surface by the inner part of the top joint of a finger.
Having debuted on the iPhone 5s, Apple's in-house sensor built into the Home button is based on a sophisticated technology by Israeli smart sensor maker AuthenTec, which the Cupertino firm snapped up in July of 2012 for a reported $356 million.
However, existing fingerprint-based security solutions could be easily bypassed by generating a fingerprint image from a series of photos of someone's finger, no physical print necessary whatsoever, according to claims by Chaos Computer Club, Europe’s largest association of hackers.
As relayed by VentureBeat, the hackers have now successfully demonstrated a proof-of-concept by copying the thumbprint of German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen.
They used a close-up photograph of von der Leyen’s thumb, obtained during a news conference in October, along with photographs taken from different angles, said Jan Krissler aka “Starbug” at the 31st annual Chaos Computer Club convention in Hamburg, Germany.
I still remember the first time I used Touch ID to unlock my iPhone. It was like magic. I’ve gotten so used to the feature that unlocking my iPad Air just feels like an exhausting experience. Why can’t I just touch the Home button to unlock everything, like my bike lock, my front door, or the trunk of my car? With iOS 8, Apple granted third-party apps the ability to use biometrics to unlock their apps, too. Now, any supported app you have can be set up to require your grubby paw so you don’t have to exhaust yourself by typing in those dang passwords.
The writing team at iDB have taken a few moments to decide which Touch ID-supported apps were worth mentioning. Then, we voted on our favorites. Today, we’ve got a list of the winner and runner-ups. Since Touch ID extensions are only a few months old, we’ve skipped the part about spotlighting the best app ever.
The Internet giant Google has upped the ante in the mobile payment arena with Tuesday's refresh to its Wallet iOS app. The new version brings out support for Touch ID allowing owners of the iPad Air 2, iPad mini 3 and the iPhone 5s and onward to unlock the app with their finger.
And with native display support for the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus display resolutions, the app now takes full advantage of the screen real estate available to owners of Apple's latest handsets.