Apple job listing supports iPhone 5S fingerprint scanner rumours
A new job posting from Apple has added further fuel to the fire of rumours suggesting that the Cupertino company could be looking to add a fingerprint scanner into the iPhone 5S and other iOS devices, as well as potentially Mac products.
The company is on the hunt for a software engineer to join a new team at the Melbourne Design Centre on Florida’s Space Coast. That’s the same area of Florida where you’d find AuthenTech, the fingerprint sensor specialists that Apple bought last year for $365 million (£233m).
It’s the only Florida-based role on the company’s website, and requires an applicant that can write “low-level code to configure and control hardware”.
Though fingerprint scanners are not mentioned by name, applicants are required to have had experience in hardware and firmware interaction, the sort of interactions that activating a fingerprint scanner and having a software response would entail.
Since the buyout last year rumours of an iPhone fingerprint scanner have swirled. Apple will be looking for a new USP for the annually-updated phone, and with rumours also suggesting that Apple are looking to introduce money management and payment systems into the new iPhone, a further security measure like this would be useful.
However, Apple regularly invest in new technologies that never see the light of day in their products, or at least not in the ways analysts predict. While we may well see fingerprint sensors hitting Apple gear in the future, it may be a hardware generation away still.
