14 DAY TRIAL // Samsung and Apple have different views on the future of the fingerprint sensors on smartphones, and while the latter has already abandoned them completely in the favor of facial recognition, the South Korean firm is actually planning to stick with this tech for a little longer.
A patent that Samsung has recently filed with KIPRIS, the trademark body in its domestic market, indicates not only that the firm aims to continue offering fingerprint readers on its devices, but also that it wants them to be placed on the front of the phones.
Both the Samsung Galaxy S8 and the Note 8 come with fingerprint sensors placed on the back of the phones, and this approach has often been criticized. In the case of the S8+ and the Note 8, for instance, the dimensions of the device make the sensor pretty hard to reach when the phone is held with one hand, while in many cases, the probability of putting the finger on the camera lens is very high.
Facial recognition and fingerprint sensor
Samsung is trying to deal this by bringing the fingerprint sensor back to the front of the phone, but giving its no-bezel approach, that would be a little bit harder.
This patent, however, imagines how the whole thing could work, with the scanner to be integrated into what sammobile.com calls “a recess” placed at the bottom of the phone and only taking a very small space on the body.
On the other hand, recent reports suggested that Samsung is also pondering a different approach for the Galaxy Note 9 with the fingerprint sensor embedded into the display. This is a strategy that Samsung considered for the S8 as well and which didn’t make the cut because of technical issues.
While patents are no confirmation that a certain technology would make it to production, they do serve as evidence that Samsung has no intention to go the Apple way and give up on fingerprint sensors entirely. By the looks of things, there’s a good chance the next Samsung flagship will come with both facial recognition (using Apple-like 3D sensing cameras) and fingerprint sensors.