Two new patents filed by Samsung suggest that the company is planning to introduce a rounded home button in its future smartphones for better fingerprint scanning.
Most of the newly launched flagship devices include fingerprint scanners for improved security. Fingerprint sensors are placed on the handset's home button or at the back of the device. Samsung's mobile phones have fingerprint sensors on the oblong home button.
According to Patently Mobile, the first patent shows the likelihood of Samsung phones to get a round home button with a built-in fingerprint scanner, which is very similar to iPhones. In the past, Apple has accused Samsung of copying some design aspects of the iPhone. Apple may take Samsung to the court once again if the Galaxy phone maker plans to use a round home button with a fingerprint scanner.
With this, Samsung has also applied for a patent that depicts the company's plan to use a fingerprint scanner at the back of the device.
It is worth noting that mobile phone manufacturers such as Samsung, Apple and more file for a number of patents each year but they do not use all of them in their handsets.
Samsung is expected to launch the Galaxy Note 6/7 in August. The upcoming phablet is one of the most awaited devices of this year and will include top-end features. If rumors are to be believed then the Galaxy Note 6/7 could be the company's first device to come with 6 GB of RAM. The handset may run on Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor.
The phablet may come with 32 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB internal storage options. It is highly likely that the Galaxy Note 6/7 may also have a microSD card slot to expand the device's storage capacity.
The Samsung handset is also rumored to have an iris scanner. Owners of the Galaxy Note 6/7 may be able to unlock their smartphone by scanning their eyes. A previous Tech Times report also highlighted that Samsung has filed for "Samsung Eyeprint" and "Samsung Iris" trademarks in Europe. Both the trademarks indicate the use of an iris scanner in its future devices. Currently, only Microsoft Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL have iris scanners.
It will be interesting to see if Samsung also brings in improved fingerprint sensing technology in the Galaxy Note 6/7.
Fingerprint scanning is gaining a lot of traction in the smartphone space. Samsung will want to stay ahead in the race and improve the technology so customers can unlock their phones quickly and easily.
