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Am I the only one who misses fingerprint readers on Apple laptops?

All I see here is a bunch of people apologizing for why Apple left an industry standard feature off their computers. Maybe all the techno-cool-cats and middle schoolers alike here don't have a use for it but for those of us who actually our computers in the real world, its handy as ****. I use my fingerprint reader probably 10-15 times a day with my thinkpads in the past and my current vaio. I always authenticate on the first swipe and the convenience is baffling.

Its only needless "bling" for a stupid kid who doesn't need an expensive computer in the first place. For those of who have to work on our machines and access sensitive material, I'm not exactly excited to hammer out my bank passwords or server root information when a single finger swipe accomplishes the same thing. I've also programmed one finger to open onenote and one to open outlook. Its unbelievably useful and doesn't just keep someone who's stolen your laptop out, it keeps peepers from picking up passwords.
 
I wouldn't miss it. I use my mac at home, not at the office. Typing in a password is no biggie, takes like the same time as swiping. I just think it will look weird and I'm all about looks.
 
At the real estate office I do freelance work for, several of the agents have fingerprint readers.

They have several passwords for each of the real estate sites they need for work and the fingerprint reader lets them swipe instead of type in front of clients.

It makes it fast and more secure, not to mention that several of the agents are older and they always have there fingers, which makes the old "writing the password down on the desk" happen with less frequency.

The reader blends in quite well to the laptops, adds grams in weight (for those who said it would add bulk), and isn't fiddly. If they were hard to use, the older agents would have given up on them.

I don't miss it on my laptop, but my clients would miss it.
 
Unless the fingerprint scanning hardware is really sophisticated and advanced, I would pass.

The cheap fingerprint scanning devices that come installed on PCs are there just for fun, or decoration- for lack of a better word. I had a friend of mine once who had a fingerprint reading laptop. Oneday, he was working to fix his car, got grease on his fingers, he washed it off, and then tried to access his computer- no luck. Despite his fingers being clean (maybe just a tiny speck of dust) he was rejected from logging in. He was unable to log in for about two days.

What I am trying to say is that these devices may not be as intelligent as you'd like them to be in order for them to serve any useful purpose.

So if Apple decides to put in one of those CIA quality biometric scanners on their notebooks, I will buy it.
 
anirban said:
Unless the fingerprint scanning hardware is really sophisticated and advanced, I would pass.

The cheap fingerprint scanning devices that come installed on PCs are there just for fun, or decoration- for lack of a better word. I had a friend of mine once who had a fingerprint reading laptop. Oneday, he was working to fix his car, got grease on his fingers, he washed it off, and then tried to access his computer- no luck. Despite his fingers being clean (maybe just a tiny speck of dust) he was rejected from logging in. He was unable to log in for about two days.

What I am trying to say is that these devices may not be as intelligent as you'd like them to be in order for them to serve any useful purpose.

So if Apple decides to put in one of those CIA quality biometric scanners on their notebooks, I will buy it.
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Correct. They can be flaky and they are every bit as insecure as they are likely to deny you access. Only industrial fingerprint scanners are even worth considering, and even then they are by no means considered all that secure.

Ideal security really is the classic "something you are, something you have, something you know" and fingerprint scanners would really only be useful in a scenario when you also need a proxy card and to type in a password.

My feeling is that laptop FP scanners are essentially a gimmick and one that I don't miss on my MBP.
 
Come on now we need one that pricks your finger and does DNA testing. We all know you can cut someone elses thumb skin off and put it on yours. Have we learned nothing from Gattaca ? :eek:
 
Imagine a multitouch screen in place of a mousepad. Then give that touch screen fingerprint reading capabilities. Best way to utilize a useless function in a kick-ass method.
 
statikcat said:
Come on now we need one that pricks your finger and does DNA testing. We all know you can cut someone elses thumb skin off and put it on yours. Have we learned nothing from Gattaca ? :eek:
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Couldn't they just cut off the entire thumb instead of the skin and DNA testing would still be foiled since the thumb contains the true DNA.
 
taylorwilsdon said:
All I see here is a bunch of people apologizing for why Apple left an industry standard feature off their computers.
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Isn't an industry standard something more along the lines of an optical disk? On almost every laptop I've recently configured, it's an option with an additional cost, not a standard.
 
taylorwilsdon said:
Maybe all the techno-cool-cats and middle schoolers alike here don't have a use for it but for those of us who actually our computers in the real world, its handy as ****.
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Well, in my opinion it's exactly the other way around, but obviously YMMV.

I'm not exactly excited to hammer out my bank passwords or server root information when a single finger swipe accomplishes the same thing. I've also programmed one finger to open onenote and one to open outlook. Its unbelievably useful and doesn't just keep someone who's stolen your laptop out, it keeps peepers from picking up passwords.
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Fair enough, but what happens when you need to log in at work or on someone else's computer? Find yourself clicking on that "I lost my password" link much, since you've forgotten them all out of disuse? When you call customer service and they ask you for the 4th letter of your security word, you can't say "Well, if you just scan my right ring finger..." :)

My last job was at a telecom that was developing a voice recognition auto-attendant. Innovative, but not that practical. I can't remember how many times my boss would be at my desk trying to make a call, and fighting the voice recognition system. "Call John Smith. .... no. ..... no. JOHN SMITH. ... no. .... cancel..." Meanwhile, I plan to direct-dial extension 2429, as soon as he hangs up in frustration. The voice dialing was handy, but once you became dependent on it, you'd start forgetting extensions (which, yes, was the whole point) but you could be screwed later.
 
taylorwilsdon said:
All I see here is a bunch of people apologizing for why Apple left an industry standard feature off their computers. Maybe all the techno-cool-cats and middle schoolers alike here don't have a use for it but for those of us who actually our computers in the real world, its handy as ****. I use my fingerprint reader probably 10-15 times a day with my thinkpads in the past and my current vaio. I always authenticate on the first swipe and the convenience is baffling.

Its only needless "bling" for a stupid kid who doesn't need an expensive computer in the first place. For those of who have to work on our machines and access sensitive material, I'm not exactly excited to hammer out my bank passwords or server root information when a single finger swipe accomplishes the same thing. I've also programmed one finger to open onenote and one to open outlook. Its unbelievably useful and doesn't just keep someone who's stolen your laptop out, it keeps peepers from picking up passwords.
Click to expand...

It may be that you use your fingerprint reader everyday, but your stance on their "industry standard" usefulness is alarming. The only benefit to a fingerprint reader is for someone that can't remember passwords, which I would say demonstrates laziness in the end-user more than anything else. Unless you're James Bond or somesuch where you've got security cameras programmed to monitor your typing and record your passwords (yes, that does some ridiculous doesn't it?), there's absolutely no more use or security value in a fingerprint reader.

Any person determined enough to gain access to your computer would probably have an easier time of lifting your fingerprint from somewhere and making a replica than catching what your password is in a blur of keystrokes. Heck, if your laptop got stolen a proficient thief could even lift your fingerprint off the laptop itself and create a gummy replica good enough to fool the reader that way since most laptop readers are simple optical fingerprint readers without any kind of detection to tell if what's being scanned is a finger. Unless you're writing your passwords on your computer, which is basically the same thing, you can't get this level of insecurity with a good password.

You can't even say that time is a factor. If you authenticate many times a day with a certain password, its soon easy enough to type the password in a fraction of a second. A fingerprint swipe takes no less time than that, not to mention the time it takes for the software to place a match with your registered fingerprints.

Passwords can be changed around infinitely. Not so with fingerprints - you have at most 10 possible variations to choose from. Even if you randomly changed it so that certain fingers only worked at certain times, you'd never be able to achieve the same level of security as with passwords.

Fingerprint readers are a joke, and that's all they are. They're a novelty added to laptops as an "added security feature" designed to wow easily impressed buyers into thinking that such-and-such company is serious about data security, but they'll never match the level of security you get out of a well-chosen password kept nowhere but in your head. The only types of people who find fingerprint readers useful are those too lazy to remember or enter a simple password.
 
taylorwilsdon said:
All I see here is a bunch of people apologizing for why Apple left an industry standard feature off their computers.
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Forgive me, but when did it become an industry standard? The trackpad is an industry standard, USB drives are industry standards; finger print readers are hardly standard. I can go into any electronics store and find a dozen PC models without one, along with a dozen models with one. It clearly hasn't become the de facto standard of security yet, and by the looks of it, it isn't going to become a standard anytime soon. Seems a lot of people prefer not to have one.

taylorwilsdon said:
Maybe all the techno-cool-cats and middle schoolers alike here don't have a use for it but for those of us who actually our computers in the real world
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I use my computer in the real world, as do most of the readers/posters on these forums. You're not the only one who uses his computer in public. Where we use our computers doesn't render our opinions on this issue any less credible or cogent than yours.

taylorwilsdon said:
it keeps peepers from picking up passwords.
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Agreed. They do have some advantages.
 
All I was trying to say is that its a very practical feature and I would certainly consider it standard on laptops in the same pricerange as the Macbook Pro.

Take a look at the latest offerings from Lenovo, Sony, Dell, and the rest of the crew and see if they offer biometrics. Wowza, they do!

I don't like writing passwords. How does that make me either lazy or James Bond? That makes me human. I know all my passwords, I don't just have one computer and I type them all frequently. When I'm out with my laptop though, you better believe I'm fingerprint-swipin' all day long. You guys are the same people who praise the Magsafe as gods creation and the most useful thing since the utensil. Yeah, its cool, I guess its saved me from yanking the cord once or twice but a fingerprint reader is damn well more useful then a magnetic cord system.
 
Dont know what people are going on about here, but I would definitely not mind one on my MB. It would be very convinient if I can log into my account with the swipe of a finger!! With some safari support, it could be used to login to the gazzilions of networking sites and mail accounts with just a swipe of a finger. Sounds useful to me!

Alternatively, face recognition on iSight can do the job too. My mobile has it, i'm sure its doable on my notebook :)
 
taylorwilsdon said:
All I was trying to say is that its a very practical feature and I would certainly consider it standard on laptops in the same pricerange as the Macbook Pro.

Take a look at the latest offerings from Lenovo, Sony, Dell, and the rest of the crew and see if they offer biometrics. Wowza, they do!

I don't like writing passwords. How does that make me either lazy or James Bond? That makes me human. I know all my passwords, I don't just have one computer and I type them all frequently. When I'm out with my laptop though, you better believe I'm fingerprint-swipin' all day long. You guys are the same people who praise the Magsafe as gods creation and the most useful thing since the utensil. Yeah, its cool, I guess its saved me from yanking the cord once or twice but a fingerprint reader is damn well more useful then a magnetic cord system.
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Your assertion that just because I don't find a certain non-standard (its an option on most laptops, not a built-in) feature at all useful makes me an instant unthinking fanboy whose opinion doesn't matter has been repeated thousands of times throughout these forums.

Besides the fact that it isn't true, since I would still find a fingerprint reader just as useless were it on an Apple product, it just shows that there is no reason that anyone in this thread can find for a fingerprint reader other than the fact that they are either 1) obviously too busy with their important work to bother remembering a series of around 8 characters, or 2) obviously more knowledgeable and intelligent than the fanboys. So you like swiping your finger better than typing in a password like people have been doing for years. Good for you, but "I like doing this" is not really a practical reason for suggesting a design change in the MacBook Pro. I'm certainly open to suggestions if you can come up with some reason why fingerprint readers are more secure or more reliable that standard password-protection, but I doubt that'll happen.

Oh, and the connection between not liking to write passwords and being human makes absolutely no sense. At all.
 
We all keep choosing to ignore the fact that these things are NOT as secure as people like to think they are. God even shows like Myth Busters have shown that they aren't all that difficult to beat, let alone the fact that they are prone to errors. At one point their error rate was quoted as high as 10%. No large company or government will accredit these fingerprint scanners for security. As I said, it's generally 3 levels of security if it IS used.
 
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