by Jason Snell
Don’t fear the flipside
Over at 512 Pixels, Stephen Hackett comments on a rumor that the OLED screen on Apple’s rumored high-end iPhone might not be able to feature a Touch ID sensor embedded into the front of the screen.
I’m with Stephen—doing an iPhone without any sort of Touch ID seems like a non-starter. But I’m also with Stephen about the prospect of moving the Touch ID sensor to the back of the phone:
Having reviewed and used several Android devices with this setup, I can say with confidence that it would not be the end of the world. There are downsides — mainly, unlocking the phone if its on a table — but the rest of the time, the location is totally fine. In fact, I think I prefer moving my finger over on the back of the back of an Android phone over wrenching my thumb over to the bottom-center of my iPhone.
My reference Android phone is a Nexus 5X, which has a fingerprint sensor on its back side. I really, really like the placement of the sensor there. It fits naturally into how I hold the phone, so I can grab it and touch the sensor with my index finger, and the phone unlocks. Yes, it has drawbacks, but just because a back-side sensor isn’t something Apple has done before doesn’t mean it’s not any good. In fact, many people might find it a superior experience.