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Apple Vs Android War Escalates With New Nexus 6 Details

This article is more than 9 years old.

I have a love and hate relationship with the Nexus 6 and there is no doubt that the massive successor to the game-changing Nexus 5 polarises opinion. But whatever your feelings, it has been revealed that the Nexus 6 had to cut one major corner which could have serious repercussions for Android - and that it is Apple ’s fault.

Speaking to The Telegraph, former Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside has revealed, as suspected, that the Nexus 6 was originally meant to have a fingerprint sensor until Apple stepped in:

“The secret behind that is that it was supposed to be fingerprint recognition, and Apple bought the best supplier,” explains Woodside. “So the second best supplier was the only one available to everyone else in the industry and they weren’t there yet.”

Woodside is referring to AuthenTec, the fingerprint recognition specialist Motorola worked with to pioneer biometric technology as far back as the Atrix 4G smartphone in 2011. In 2012 Apple stepped in to buy AuthenTec for $356m and its technology is now exclusively used to make the Touch ID fingerprint sensor in iPhones and iPads.

Read more - iPhone 6 Vs Nexus 6 Review: Fabulous Phablets Fight

Touch ID started out as a convenient homescreen unlock, but it has now matured into the key verification method behind Pay - Apple’s major assault on the global payments industry.

By contrast attempts by Apple rivals to use alternative fingerprint sensor technology have so far been disastrous and without viable hardware  Google has yet to integrate a clear biometric strategy into Android (amid other security concerns). This could have repercussions now reports claim Samsung has had a breakthrough in fingerprint technology, which it will use in the radically overhauled Galaxy S6.

Digging further into Motorola’s original Nexus 6 plans, Woodside expanded on the vision of what could have been...

He said the fingerprint sensor was going to be built into the dimple on the back of the Nexus 6 (designed to be the natural resting point for an index finger) therefore leaving the screen uncluttered by a wide bezel as still seen on the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.

For me this is the route Apple should eventually take with Touch ID (building it into the Apple logo on the back) in order to reduce the bottom bezel on future iPhones.

Woodside left Motorola in early 2014 to become Chief Operating Officer at Dropbox, but he clearly still has emotional ties to the phone maker and even the Nexus 6. “It is enormous," he admits: "it’s a bit big for me; I drop it all the time."

Whether Google and its phone partners dropped something even bigger in failing to secure Authentec remains to be seen.

Read more - Best And Worst Things About The Nexus 6

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