Those who are fans of Apple and its various consumer electronics products – primarily the nearly ubiquitous iPhone – are keeping a close eye on the to-be-released iPhone 5S, which will feature a fingerprint reader that solves the “important” issue of digital identity. Last week, Apple announced that the release of the next iPhone would be delayed. Add that to gains made by Samsung, and you have those who own Apple stock a bit worried about whatÂ’s going on in the Apple labs.
Mike Elgan, who often writes about Apple, noted that “the Â’iÂ’ in iPhone will stand for Â’identityÂ'” and “the worldÂ’s great creator of markets [is] capable of creating the house that everybody lives in.” Perhaps, but it could be that Elgan is overselling the technology that would make “i” stand for identity. Elgan adds, “I believe Apple sees the NFC chip and fingerprint scanner as part of a Grand Strategy: To use the iPhone as the solution to the digital identity problem.”
The approach would definitely differ from that of Google and Facebook as they also deal with identity problems that grow from having a massive network of inter-connected users. “Apple loves to solve huge, hitherto unsolved problems,” Elgan writes. “And there is no problem bigger from a lost-opportunity perspective than digital identity.” Whatever may be the case, Apple had better churn out that new iPhone soon. The companyÂ’s stock has taken a nosedive of late and the calls that the company is nothing without Steve Jobs are getting louder.