A buyout deal by Apple effectively nixed Motorola’s chance to put a fingerprint sensor under the bonnet of its Nexus 6.
Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside said that the dimple at the back of the Nexus 6 was originally intended to play host to a fingerprint sensor. After all it had all the technology – it was a pioneer in bringing fingerprint recognition to its Atrix 4G smartphone.
At the time Motorola used Authentec which was purchased by Apple a year later for a price of $356 million.
Authentec was the best supplier around, “the second best supplier was the only one available to everyone else in the industry, and they weren’t there yet”.
Apple’s buy out effectively meant that the Nexus 6 was left without biometric authentication and the world was given the impression that Apple was the first to put the technology on a mainstream phone.
It looks like Motorola made the right move. The HTC One max had the slow and buggy experience that puts users off trying to use the feature.
