Apple often gets credit for being the first to do things others beat them to… and this whole business with fingerprint scanning on a phone is putting them right back in that position. But did you know there have been consumer mobile devices with fingerprint scanners for a decade? Yeah, that’s right. HP’s atrociously-named iPaq PC 5500 actually gets to claim the honors of being the first such device to contain the now-controversial technology… and Motorola’s Atrix 4G — an Android device from 2011 — had it too. The difference here is that Apple has the kind of clout and control that no company before it has in trying to popularize biometrics. They’ve got a marketing machine like no other, and being in control of both the software and hardware in their devices, have much less trouble making the technology useful. So do you think the iPhone 5s will finally make fingerprint ID something everybody uses? Head on over to Phandroid for the full story.
