What if your Apple Mac had Touch-ID?
Far from being confirmed, by the unknown sources mentioned on the Taiwanese tech news site www.apple.club.tw, Apple could be working on integrating Touch-ID in the next Macbook Air 12 inches laptop, as well as future desktop products. Much like every rumor about future Apple products, it’s easy to feel pulled in two opposite directions, one being total skepticism, the other, eager expectation, and no matter what we choose to believe, very few widespread rumors about Apple have been entirely baseless.
There are at least two main reasons for Apple to extend Touch-ID support into the Mac ecosystem:
Apple Pay
Apple is revolutionizing the way we pay at checkout, but the concept can be extended to online payments as well. This is where Apple needs to pay attention, once Apple Pay becomes a household name.
Up until now, most online stores accept payments through the processing of individual credit card information that is sent to a credit card processor, which in turns will provide a one-time token ID, that will cease to exist once the transaction is completed, ensuring the security of that particular transaction.
Google Wallet is, almost, the perfect example of what happens when Apple Pay is applied to online payments: when using Google Wallet, all credit card information is stored in secure servers, and only the Google Wallet token ID is sent to process the transaction.
Of course, Google Wallet is not nearly as popular as Apple Pay, even while pre-dating the core functionality by several years, Google Wallet never quite caught outside of Google’s own ecosystem, but it won’t be long before Google makes a conscious effort in offering a comparatively competitive technology to Apple Pay.
If Apple integrates Touch-ID in the Macbook touchpad as well as in Magic Trackpads, a whole new demographic of consumers might find an easier way to order items and services online, without ever typing a credit card number again. There are many users who, up until now, may be still shy of making mobile payments with their phone, and the security provided by a payment system that requires simply the imprint of their thumb, could turn into a considerable boost in popularity for Apple Pay.
Device security
The second reason we can think of is for Touch-ID to be a way to extend the security of iPhones and iPads to Macbooks and Mac’s, beyond iCloud.
For instance, Touch-ID could be made an optional requirement for remotely accessing a Macbook, or iMac computer, when an internet connection isn’t available, which would close the loop on the security of all Apple devices.
Forecast
Ultimately, it’s unclear whether the rumored Apple Macbook Air 12 inches will come with Touch-ID, but based on recent history of previous rumors, there is a good chance Apple might be at the very least considering the possibility of integrating the technology alongside the anticipated USB Type-C, and the choice of Silver, Gold and Space Gray colors.