Samsung Casts Doubt on iPhone 8’s Embedded Touch ID Sensor

When Samsung fails at following in the footsteps of its California-based counterpart, the company always seems point the finger, often placing the blame for its own inability to deliver excellence at the feet of its own component suppliers. And so the cycle continues, as Samsung has apparently failed, yet again, to achieve the coveted title of being first to market with a fingerprint sensor embedded underneath the display glass of its flagship handsets.

Of course, as most of us know by now, Apple is almost certain to deliver an uber-premium iPhone 8 flagship boasting this first-of-its-kind technology later on this year. However, Samsung, in its desperate attempt to one-up Cupertino in that regard, has ceremoniously failed to do so — and will therefore be unveiling Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ flagships in a few weeks, featuring fingerprint sensors not embedded underneath the display glass, itself, but plastered around back next to the camera module like so many Android smartphones before it.

And the South Korean tech-titan, in typical crybaby fashion, appears to be blaming Synaptics, one of its California-based suppliers, for not being able to deliver an under-the-glass Touch ID competitor in time for the soon-to-be-unveiled Galaxy S8 devices.

“Samsung poured resources into Synaptics’ fledgling technology last year, but the results were frustrating,” anonymous sources within Samsung’s supply chain indicated in a report published by South Korea’s The Investor on Monday. “With the production imminent, the company had to decide to relocate the fingerprint scanning home button to the back of the device at the last minute.”

 Since Samsung, in collaboration with Synaptics, was unable to emulate the Touch ID-like technology believed to debut on Apple’s iPhone 8 flagship, the company was ‘forced’ to settle on a design for the S8 and S8+ that has already been popularized by a myriad of Android-powered handsets before it — including the recently unveiled LG G6, which features a front panel encompassed almost entirely by an LCD display, with the fingerprint sensor embedded around back, underneath a dual-lens camera module.

In light of this spur-of-the-moment change in design, it appears that the most noteworthy feature of Samsung’s upcoming flagships will be their massive OLED displays, which we’ve already seen plenty of times — even in a fully-functional capacity.

Sadly, this wouldn’t be the first time Samsung has openly placed the blame on its suppliers. Back in 2013, amidst Apple’s unveiling of Touch ID on the iPhone 5s, the South Korean company had been working with a firm called ‘Validity’ to help it implement a similar technology underneath the home button on its Galaxy Note 3 flagship. However, much akin to this current scenario, those efforts fell flat, too — at which point Samsung cried foul and placed the blame on Validity, rather than admitting that it’s just trying to keep pace with Apple: the true global leader in innovation.

The Galaxy S8 and S8+ flagships are slated to be unveiled at Samsung’s annual ‘Unpacked’ event, which will be held this year on the 29th of this month with the handsets being available to the public starting April 28th.