Motorola's Nexus 6 would have had a fingerprint scanner if Apple hadn't acquired the company responsible for its biometric tech, Motorola's former CEO has told British press.Former Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside (who now leads Dropbox), told The Telegraph in an interview that a dimple on the handset's back was supposed to feature an integrated sensor, but its supplier couldn't meet its quality demands.”The secret behind that is that it was supposed to be fingerprint recognition, and Apple bought the best supplier. So the second best supplier was the only one available to everyone else in the industry and they weren't there yet,” said Woodside.Apple bought AuthenTec for $356m in 2012 and its technology is now exclusively used to make the Touch ID fingerprint sensor in iPhones and iPads.An investigative report by Ars Technica on the Nexus 6's firmware revealed support for a fingerprint reader was removed late in the development cycle.SamMobile reported last week that a Touch ID clone is going to feature prominently in Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S6 mobile – its previous swipe-based fingerprint ID feature came in for usability criticism.
How Apple cost the Nexus 6 a fingerprint scanner
