Samsung Goes Beyond The Fingerprint With An Iris Scanner

Samsung Goes Beyond The Fingerprint With An Iris Scanner In The Note 7

(Photo credit: Samsung)

Over the past year, Samsung has climbed back to the top of the premium smartphone heap. Thanks to the successful launches of the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge phones, Samsung recently enjoyed its most profitable quarter in two years. Meanwhile, Apple reported that iPhones sales have dropped again (for the second time) and profits slipped by 27% in its most recent quarter.
The South Korean electronics giant is hoping to keep the momentum up with the launch of the Note 7 (yes, Samsung is skipping the Note 6), its latest phablet that comes with a stylus pen. The Note 7 adopts most of the same components of the S7 series phones. The phone has a 5.7-inch Super AMOLED display that’s curved on the edges. There’s a rear 12-megapixel camera and a 5mp front-facing camera. The same quad-core processor powers the phone. 4 gigabytes of memory. A 3,500mAh battery with fast-charging capabilities. Samsung is also claiming water and dust resistance for the Note 7.
One big difference with the Note 7 is the inclusion of an iris scanner (using an infrared light on the front of phone) for authenticating the user and unlocking the device. In a demo I saw, the unlock screen shows the user where they need to line up their eyes. Once lined up, the phone quickly unlocks. The phone contains the usual fingerprint scanner too.
“The iris can be more secure than fingerprint because there are more points to check than the fingerprint and irises don’t change after the first 18 months of life, but researchers will need to test this specific implementation to validate this,” said tech analyst Patrick Moorhead.
On top of the new iris scanner, Samsung is locking down the Note 7 with its Knox enterprise security software. Samsung is also introducing the new “Secure Folder,” which is a separate folder for holding data that requires another layer of authentication to unlock. All these beefed up security features lend the device favorably to enterprise customers.

In an interview with Forbes, Samsung Electronics America president Tim Baxter said Note users spend 50% more time on business applications, 20% more time watching videos and 30% more time gaming. “Samsung really pioneered the phablet category with the introduction of the first Note in 2011,” said Baxter. “Over that five-year period, we’ve seen rapid growth. Really loyal Samsung customers come from the Note franchise.”
Accompanying the launch of the new phone is a new marketing strategy. In retail, Samsung will advertise its phones with various other Samsung products, like virtual reality peripherals, wearables and expandable memory cards. For an initial sales promotional, consumers will be able to choose between a Gear Fit 2 (a fitness tracker) or a 256 gigabyte memory card for free with the purchase of a Note 7. Samsung will also advertise its new phones along with its virtual reality devices, such as the Gear VR headset and Gear 360 camera.
The new advertising strategy is meant to highlight the growing ecosystem of Samsung devices that can work in concert with its phones. Samsung began talking more about its consumer electronics business as a larger ecosystem play last January at its Consumer Electronics Show keynote, where it made a lot of noise around the emerging world of the “Internet of Things.” The new strategy is also in recognition that phone sales just aren’t growing as quickly as they once were. After years of breakneck growth, global smartphones demand in the second quarter of 2016 was almost flat year-over-year (up only 0.3%) with 343.3 million phones shipped, according to research firm IDC.
“We know that consumers are holding onto phones longer,” said Baxter. “We want to inject multiple reasons why you should be out there buying. We want to open them up to new experiences we can create with the phone. … This is a new frontier for us. We’re learning what consumers want.”