It has emerged in a new report that the new Galaxy S8 will be lacking a rumored key feature down to the simple reason that Samsung ran out of development time. South Korean outlet The Investor, reported that Samsung and its partner Synaptics had not progressed onto the on-screen fingerprint scanning technology far enough for it to feature in the new device set to be released later this month.
“Samsung poured resources into Synaptics’ fledgling technology last year but the results were frustrating. With the production imminent, the company had to decide to relocate the fingerprint scanning home button to the back of the device at the last minute,” a source told The Investor. This comes as a huge disappointment for users, who have complained that rear fingerprint scanners would have the ability to cause random phone unlocks and smudged cameras, but opens the door wide for Apple to potentially now be the first company to release a handset that features an on-screen fingerprint scanner with their iPhone 8. LG have also recently debuted a new display that features integrated fingerprint scanning which has been presumed to launch in early 2018.
Recent reports have claimed that Apple would not use fingerprint sensors from Synaptics nor Qualcomm and instead use a custom embedded sensor from Authentec. If this is true, it means that Synaptics have been shunned by two major smartphone developers, suggesting that it does in fact have development problems.
The rear fingerprint scanner could simply be a backup, however. Samsung are expected to unveil features such as an improved iris scanner and face-detection features used by the front-facing camera to authenticate and unlock the phone. Although again, this is another thing to be rumored for the iPhone 8.
