Why doesn't Apple make a standalone Touch ID?

Posted by thomasjb 6 days ago

Comments

Comment by charlietran 6 days ago

I did this recently, though on a much lower budget. You don’t need to buy a new $150 magic keyboard or a 3d printer.

1. Buy an old A2449 keyboard, ideally one with broken keys or battery but working touch ID. I got mine for $45 shipped. Recent listing example: https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=magic+keyboard+a2449&_s...

2. Pry it apart as described in the article (really, there is so much glue) and then use some spare Legos to make an enclosure like this person: https://grepjason.sh/2022/standalone-touch-id-part-2

The standalone Touch ID key button is just under the size of 2x2x1 Lego. I integrated mine into a space diorama set for better vibes: https://imgur.com/a/Im7t9Xb

Comment by pixelatedindex 6 days ago

That’s such a cool Lego diorama. Beautifully done!

Comment by jq-r 6 days ago

It's 1/4 of this great set: https://www.lego.com/en-us/product/tales-of-the-space-age-21...

Comment by ben1040 6 days ago

It's me, I'm too lazy to modify a keyboard.

I came upon a spare Touch ID keyboard. I just got Command strips and adhered the whole keyboard to the underside of my desk. USB cable is clipped to the desk and goes to my dock. I've got the fingerprint reader right next to my standing desk controls so it's really convenient, and I still get to use my Keychron as my keyboard. The low profile of the Apple keyboard means it doesn't get in the way.

Also every time I need to unlock my Mac or sudo I get to feel like I'm tripping the silent alarm at the bank.

Comment by aetherspawn 6 days ago

I buy and use the stupid keyboard just for this inconvenience.

Although to be honest not the worst keyboard I own, but not the best, I probably rate it like a 7/10.

It would be a 5/10 if the Bluetooth wasn’t so magically seamless.

The low profile means I can get by without a wrist pillow.

Comment by commandersaki 6 days ago

I had a mechanical keyboard before getting the touch id one, and I have to say the touch id one feels much better to type on anyway.

Comment by dddw 5 days ago

Now I'm curious what mechanical keyboard you had before...

Comment by qn9n 5 days ago

Yeah was it a cheap and not so great one or was it a no expenses withheld all out typing machine?

Comment by commandersaki 5 days ago

I have two, Ducky One 2 TKL (Cherry Brown), and a Durgod Taurus K320 TKL (Cherry Blue). Good keyboards and both similar to each other, but just find the magic keyboard a nicer experience.

Comment by nunez 6 days ago

To be fair, your Apple Watch becomes a secure authenticator for your Mac when paired, so Apple probably prefers that you just buy an Apple Watch.

Comment by geerlingguy 6 days ago

I tried living with just the Apple Watch instead of the Touch ID for a few months to see how reliable it was...

Sometimes it would take a few minutes in the morning before my Mac would even recognize 'hey, there's a watch' (typing in my full password was usually much quicker than waiting for the watch unlock).

Sometimes whatever notification happens that triggers the watch to vibrate and allow the double-squeeze-to-accept action would just... not.

Other times the above notification would pop up about 8-15 seconds after the prompt on the screen.

It was inconsistent enough I got _really_ good at typing my password, since it was normally quicker than waiting on the Apple Watch.

Contrast that with the Touch ID, that's always ready to go.

Comment by plorkyeran 6 days ago

TouchID does more than just unlock the computer. It's usable any time you'd otherwise be prompted for your password.

Comment by graeme 6 days ago

You can use apple watch for password managers and all macos passwords prompts. Does require an apple silicon mac iirc.

The main downside is it doesn't always recognize and it takes a few seconds to trigger. I'd love a separate touch id. But absent that the watch is quite useful.

Comment by nunez 5 days ago

there's a PAM that you can install that lets you use your Watch for superuser actions. i uninstalled it some years ago because it got kind-of old and Watch authentication is buggy anyway.

Comment by commandersaki 6 days ago

Can the watch authenticate it is who you really are? Asking because I do not know anything about the watches.

Comment by JohnBooty 6 days ago

The Apple Watch knows that it's you, or at least somebody that knows your PIN.

It's tied to your iPhone and Apple account during initial setup.

Each time you put the Apple Watch on, you have to enter your PIN to unlock it. It can only perform automatic unlocking of your Mac and iPhone in this unlocked state.

The watch does automatic wrist detection and it will automatically RE-lock itself as soon as you take it off.

This is reasonably secure for most needs, though of course you can disable all of this automatic unlocking if you want more security. I forget if it's on by default or not. IIRC I had to enable it but I'm not too sure.

Comment by mingus88 5 days ago

TouchID is biometric so these are not equivalent authentication methods.

As a watch user i will also say that the Bluetooth wake is unreliable enough to make this a poor replacement. Frustrating, even.

Comment by JohnBooty 5 days ago

I'm not sure that "PIN + hardware dongle that requires continuous skin contact" is meaningfully less secure than a fingerprint sensor, but at least Apple puts you in the driver's seat to choose the level you're most comfortable with.

I've found the Bluetooth connectivity quite reliable. When it doesn't work, it's because the watch re-locked itself.

Comment by wsces 6 days ago

The watch needs to be unlocked either with a PIN code or can be set to unlock on close proximity to iPhone which unlocks via Face ID (or Touch ID, or a passcode). Once it is in an authenticated state it remains unlocked while it is attached to a wrist. I’m not totally clear how it detects when it separates from a wrist (probably a light sensor, heart rate sensor or some heuristic derived from the both - but it’s pretty instantaneous and reliable). “Privileged” actions like payments or escalation prompts still require a double click of the watch’s physical button to confirm, but in this authenticated state it is possible to use the watch to unlock Mac or iPhone based on proximity alone.

It has no concept of “who” you are, only that it got positively authenticated while on a wrist by proximity to your iPhone unlock or a manual correct PIN entry and hasn’t separated from that wrist since.

Comment by grishka 6 days ago

Apple Watch requires an iPhone. There are many people who use a Mac but can't stand iOS.

Comment by DANmode 5 days ago

> Apple Watch requires an iPhone.

I’m no Apple salesperson, but, no.

Once you set the watch up, you can throw the phone in a lake, and retain most if not all major features.

Especially the cellular models.

Comment by RedComet 5 days ago

"once you set the watch up"

This does require an iPhone though, right?

Comment by DANmode 5 days ago

Access to someone’s, once.

An achievable bar for people buying Dick Tracy computers.

Comment by lucyjojo 4 days ago

if i remember right, to activate the security (touch id like) feature you need the phone to be on your account. there are more restrictions than just pure activation.

Comment by DANmode 4 days ago

Even for cellular models?

That seems…ripe for disruption.

Why is nobody selling a cellular standalone watch?

Not enough units to make manufacturing worth it?

Is this a chicken-and-egg problem?

Comment by mvdtnz 6 days ago

Great reason to wear the world's ugliest, dorkiest watch.

Comment by rcarmo 6 days ago

Doesn’t work for signing in to web sites or apps.

Comment by taldo 5 days ago

I was wondering if it'd be possible to go further, and actually use it as a fully fledged keyboard, but with your choice of switches and mechanical layout... and turns out that somebody has been doing that already! basically reverse-engineering the matrix and hooking up your own switches to the logic board. You get TouchID, pretty good BT performance and integration in the Apple ecosystem, good battery life, ... and all in a single device.

Found it in a forum post here: https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=120964.0

Comment by ChrisMarshallNY 6 days ago

I actually have a small Magic Keyboard under my desk (in the keyboard tray). It’s positioned, so that I can reach under, without looking, and touch the Touch ID.

I don’t like the rest of the keyboard. I have a big Keychron on top of the desk, that I use for typing.

Comment by sen 6 days ago

I’ve been griping over this for years now. I get pretty bad RSI so like using a split mechanical keyboard for coding, but I also use long/complex passwords so I like using Touch ID too. It dumbfounds me that you can’t get a Touch ID pad or even a numpad with Touch ID to sit next to aftermarket keyboards.

Comment by czstrong 6 days ago

I bought a used Magic Keyboard on eBay for about $50 to sit within reach of my mechanical keyboard. Considered mounting it under my desk but haven’t bothered yet.

Comment by cherioo 6 days ago

I just bought the same and planning to break out just the touch id to put into a 3D printed enclosure. Expensive hobby…

Comment by dbg31415 6 days ago

So this setup is for people who use a Mac, but not a Mac laptop (or who keep the laptop closed and use it exclusively with an external monitor), and who also don't want to buy Apple's keyboard with Touch ID, or an Apple Watch. I gotta say, I don't think that's a huge group of people.

Comment by makeitdouble 6 days ago

Having a mac laptop doesn't help either if you use it primarily as a secondary monitor, relatively far away from your reach. This is a pretty standard setup in enterprise IMHO.

Then not wanting to wear a watch and wishing for a better keyboard than the Apple one don't sound outlandish either.

Comment by Grisu_FTP 6 days ago

This is a bit offtopic (but im genuinely curious since i dont use iPhones) but is there any advantage to using faceid over touchid in iphones? This Notch/Dynamic Island looks terrible IMO. Also you can "Authorize" stuff without even having physical access to your device, someone could in theory pick up your phone, make it face towards you, say "LOOK!" and your phone is unlocked. Also i found it far more unreliable to instantly unlock.

A fingerprint reader inside the powerbutton is the way to go IMO, you instantly unlock when u press the power button, you have to actually touch the device to verify and you have no notch.

IIRC just looking at the confirmation if i wanted to buy something in the app store via face id was enough to confirm it.

Comment by lxgr 6 days ago

I believe Apple UX guidelines mandate some sort of explicit confirmation before taking any action after authenticating the user with Face ID, but I've unfortunately also seen many apps not really conform to that.

> IIRC just looking at the confirmation if i wanted to buy something in the app store via face id was enough to confirm it.

Apple themselves are generally good about asking for explicit confirmation, but annoyingly in a way nobody else can replicate: They repurposed double pressing the power button, which is otherwise the Apple Pay secure attention sequence, for exactly one non-Apple-Pay action – buying something in the App Store (or iTunes store etc.)

Comment by TMWNN 6 days ago

> This is a bit offtopic (but im genuinely curious since i dont use iPhones) but is there any advantage to using faceid over touchid in iphones?

Touch ID is far, far, far superior to Face ID.

I just want Touch ID to return on iPhones. Oh how I hate, hate, hate Face ID and its inability to read my face without my glasses when I get up in the morning.

Comment by fnoff 6 days ago

For me the biggest advantage of faceid is that it isn't bothered by wet fingers or gloves. It works most of the time, where I remember struggling more (though still not often) with touchid. This was with an iphone 8, so I don't know how good they are now.

Comment by Grisu_FTP 6 days ago

Yea true, guess im just not wet enough often enough that i completly forgot about that

Comment by fanf2 5 days ago

FaceID is much slower than TouchID, FaceID fails with wet glasses, it fails with a breathing mask. I can’t use the phone with wet fingers or gloves so needing a bare dry finger for TouchID is fine. FaceID annoyingly worse.

Comment by JohnBooty 5 days ago

The big problem for me is using FaceID in bed. Unless you sleep on your back, the pillow obscures your face.

All you typically need to do is lift your head up so FaceID can get a clear look... but when I'm sleepy, it's annoying.

Ideally, the phone would just have both... somehow... but this seems technically infeasible so I get it

Comment by jasomill 6 days ago

This. I’d complain more about Face ID if Apple Pay wasn’t the first payment mechanism I’ve used that reliably fulfills the promise of being faster/easier than cash, and Face ID + mechanical button is a big part of that.

Comment by pjerem 5 days ago

Still, Apple Pay was way more reliable with TouchID.

Step 1 : take the phone off your pocket Step 2 : put it against the terminal while touching (not pressing) the home button. Step 3 : there is no step 3, you already paid because even if the phone wasn’t unlocked the NFC reader automatically unlocked it, opened your default card and validated the payment thanks to your finger being on the reader.

Compared to FaceID, no need to double press a button and to watch your screen waiting for the little animation to finish.

Don’t get me wrong, paying with FaceID totally works and it’s fast. But paying with TouchID wasn’t fast, it was instant and thoughtless.

Comment by JohnBooty 5 days ago

I find both of them equally (un)reliable. I feel like they both work(ed) about 80% of the time.

The most annoying failure case for FaceID for me is using it in bed. I'm a side sleeper so half of my face is mushed into the pillow. I realize how lazy this sounds, but when I'm half asleep... that is exactly when I don't feel like tapping out a PIN or repositioning my head.

    A fingerprint reader inside the powerbutton 
    is the way to go IMO

I really wish the phone had both methods, TBH.

I love the "reader inside the powerbutton" idea, but... phone cases....

Comment by Grisu_FTP 5 days ago

Yea, the faceid in the bed thing is very annoying when using my "tinker iphone" in the bed. Havent found Fingerprint auth unreliable, but my hands and phone mostly stay very clean and i have my finger added 2-3 times for faster and more reliable scans.

My phone has the fingerprint reader in the power button, all cases just leave the powerbutton open.

Comment by aprilnya 4 days ago

You just have to not look at your phone. I don’t mean “rotate your head away”, I mean just don’t look at it with your eyes. If your eyes aren’t looking at the phone it won’t unlock.

Comment by fragmede 6 days ago

They scan your eyes and make sure you're actually looking at it to prevent exactly that attack. The problem with it is twins, or even people who's faces are similar enough (mother/daughter or sisters) can be enough to unlock.

Comment by pacifika 6 days ago

Face ID works in the rain

Comment by Grisu_FTP 6 days ago

Isnt the issue not the wetness itself but the wrinkles your finger get after being in water for longer periods of time? Atleast I cant remember when rain was so bad my fingers wrinkled true after a bath tho

Comment by letouj 5 days ago

No, when I had a Touch ID iPhone, it would often have trouble reading my fingerprint even if my hands were just still damp from being washed in the sink for a few seconds and not fully towel-dried.

Comment by pjerem 5 days ago

You don’t have glasses I guess.

Comment by Simulacra 6 days ago

I really miss touch ID on my phone, all of the swiping is a little cumbersome and sore after a while. Stretching my hand to swipe up down and so forth. I deeply miss the home button.

Comment by gorfian_robot 6 days ago

same!

Comment by rcarmo 6 days ago

I’m on this bandwagon. Have my own keyboard (literally just finished soldering and 3D printing one) and still have to have the Apple keyboard cluttering my desk for biometrics). Have been thinking about this for a while, but it feels incredibly wasteful to spoil a useful piece of equipment just for the sake of getting at that sensor.

Comment by lucyjojo 4 days ago

somebody else in this thread stuck the keyboard under his desk with some tape.

Comment by dk404930 5 days ago

I was always surprised that Apple never released a track pad with the Touch ID integrated in one of the corners. I’d purchase one in a heart beat if they did.

Comment by kevin061 6 days ago

Doesn't Apple have a Face ID trick with a paired iPhone to replace Touch ID on macOS?

That is probably why. They prefer you to buy an iPhone than to sell you another gadget.

By the way, I like the idea but for some reason it unpairs randomly and I have to go into settings and re-enable it every couple of months. Really annoying.

Comment by TMWNN 6 days ago

I just want Touch ID to return on iPhones. Oh how I hate, hate, hate Face ID and its inability to read my face without my glasses when I get up in the morning. How is it that Moto figured out how to put the touch sensor on the back of the phone years ago, but Apple refuses?

Comment by andsoitis 6 days ago

How big do you think the market for that would be?

Comment by crazygringo 6 days ago

A big proportion of everyone who uses a non-Apple keyboard with their Mac, I'd say. I would absolutely use one with my ergonomic keyboard, TouchID is so much more convenient than constantly typing your password in.

Comment by andsoitis 6 days ago

> A big proportion of everyone who uses a non-Apple keyboard with their Mac, I'd say.

If you were to guess how many sales (e.g. in units) they'd make every year, what would you guess?

Comment by dwood_dev 6 days ago

Hundreds, maybe even thousands.

I jest, but probably the $150 sales of the TouchID keyboard would tank as they are displaced by such a device.

Comment by nkrisc 6 days ago

So you’re already starting with a pretty slim market.

Comment by re-thc 6 days ago

Which is small considering the Mac market itself is small relative to the PC market.

Comment by Brajeshwar 6 days ago

From the way the Polishing Cloth, and recently, the iPhone Pocket gets sold out; this will get easily sold.

Comment by heddelt 6 days ago

>iPhone Pocket

That has got to be a joke. It's like they're mocking their customers. I can't stop laughing at the sight of the guy they somehow convinced to model this thing in their promotional photo.

Comment by crazygringo 6 days ago

It's a trendy fashion item for a particular subset of rich fashion people, which is not most people. It makes total sense in that context. It doesn't really need to make sense to everybody else.

Comment by heddelt 6 days ago

>The design drew inspiration from the concept of “a piece of cloth”

Someone somewhere is taking the mick. I honestly would never be able to see a guy the same way again if I saw him wearing one of these.

Comment by K7PJP 5 days ago

They're referring to A-POC https://www.moma.org/collection/works/100361 In any case, these were sold in 10 Apple Stores worldwide, and only a single US store. They were aimed at an Asian audience, as far as I understand.

Comment by dwb 6 days ago

I don’t get the extreme negative reaction here and elsewhere. It’s not for me either, but I also don’t think it looks ridiculous – it just a little bag. There’s a pretty hard limit on how crazy that can look. It’s like the detractors aren’t aware or accepting that there are people with different tastes in the world. Why not just say “it’s not for me”?

Comment by mingus88 5 days ago

The pocket sold out worldwide and made headlines everywhere. Sounds like a success to me.

It’s not for me either but fashion is as fashion does.

Comment by 6 days ago

Comment by mcphage 6 days ago

Bigger than the market for $200 phone pockets.

Comment by sleepybrett 6 days ago

I used to have terrible rsi and switched to a kinesis advantage, if I could get a little touchid pad that i could attach with doublesided tape to it, it would be awesome. As it stands I just type my password a lot.

Comment by petesergeant 6 days ago

I stick an Apple Keboard to the underside of my desk

Comment by sleepybrett 5 days ago

I'm hitting up the help desk at work to see if anyone has turned one in to be recycled so i can harvest the controller/sensor.

Comment by Waterluvian 6 days ago

Why would you unbundle your bundle and sell the TV channels one by one?

Comment by crazygringo 6 days ago

Because if someone is going to all the trouble of getting a non-Apple keyboard, TouchID isn't going to convince them to go back to an Apple keyboard. They're using a different keyboard because things like key travel or ergonomics are a necessity.

Apple could sell a standalone TouchID sensor and charge $50 or $60 for it.

Comment by re-thc 6 days ago

On the same note they should make a Face ID camera like Windows Hello.

Comment by mayoff 6 days ago

I was shocked they didn’t do this when they added the “notch” to MacBooks.

Comment by gorfian_robot 6 days ago

apples and oranges (pun!) but my new win11 laptop has the 'faceID' feature and it works well. no idea why apple is so slow on this.

Comment by PlunderBunny 6 days ago

Yeah - I’ve heard people say that the laptop lid (screen) is too thin for the sensors required to do proper FaceID (as opposed to just using the existing optical camera, which is easily fooled). But I don’t understand why the notch part of the screen just couldn’t be a bit deeper (and have a corresponding cutout on the bottom part of the laptop to accomodate it when the lid is closed). Then again, given how often the FaceID on my iPhone fails to recognise me…

Comment by gorfian_robot 6 days ago

trying turning off "require attention" for faceid on you phone..

and yeah, they can kill themselves making the iphone 17 air and a folding phone. but put an existing tech into a laptop? naw. not gonna do it.

Comment by ggm 6 days ago

Doesn't this tie back strongly to the secure region logic?

Sensing is one thing. Trusting the sensor input and what it unlocks is another.

Comment by crazygringo 6 days ago

No, because they already do it for keyboards. There's zero reason they couldn't make it standalone. It's just the keyboard minus the rest of the keys.

Comment by ggm 6 days ago

So they do a protocol bootstrap to link the sensor to the secure zone in some manner rooted in the trust region CA, and then do what they need without divulging secrets, over the USB bus? ok. that (or a more cogent version) would make sense.

If you just package this button up, as a USB device, it's no different, if it can be bootstrapped as an input device "to" the secure zone.

Comment by drum55 6 days ago

It’s more or less an entire apple watch acting as a secure element, or used to be in the older models.

Comment by QuercusMax 6 days ago

It's very annoying when I'm using my personal mac mini and have to type my password a billion times, compared to my work macbook which lets me touch id.

But is it annoying enough I'd actually buy one of these hypothetical $50 boxes? IDK.... I've got my two machines on a KVM so I can use my Kinesis keyboard with both of them.

Comment by er0k 6 days ago

or just use a yubikey... it costs ~$50

Comment by xoa 6 days ago

This comment could use some elaboration. For those that don't know you can use a Yubikey that supports PIV as a smart card for logging into macOS and performing a range of admin authentication operations with just the PIN, not just in the GUI but sudo as well (and of course more directly for SSH etc). It's not a perfect substitute, no ApplePay, but it means you can have a long complex password and only need a 6-8 digit PIN for most usage while still being pretty safe, and has some positives of its own in a multiuser or machine environment. It's a very reasonable option to consider IMO, even though yes it'd absolutely be nice if Apple did better on the hardware auth front.

Comment by amanzi 6 days ago

Your comment just reminded me I can use my Yubikey to unlock my Linux laptop but hadn't set this up yet. I've been typing my password each time like an animal! Thanks. :-)

Comment by rcarmo 6 days ago

Doesn’t really work with Apple’s own stuff. At least I never got it to work.

Comment by 47282847 6 days ago

That’s not a biometric TouchID. Any touch by anyone will trigger it.

Comment by mingus88 5 days ago

Yubikey Bio exists. It’s $100 though so, whether it not it’s worth integrating into MacOS vs a first party keyboard is going to be subjective

Comment by tyre 6 days ago

I mean, why would they?

There is no scalable market. They want to control the hardware for quality and margins. They already sell a keyboard with Touch ID included. Mac accessories are far from their focus area.

They don’t because it doesn’t make sense to.

Edit: If you’re downvoting, feel free to say why!

Comment by starkparker 6 days ago

If they made something that was just the sensor and logic board that they already manufacture, and sold it for exactly the same US$149 retail price _or more_, there are people in this thread who would buy it.

Comment by tyre 6 days ago

That’s not enough volume for Apple. This is a company comfortable sitting on $100bn in cash.

If they sold 1 million of those, it’s not worth it for them. Even 10 million units likely isn’t something they’re interested in, and I doubt they’d see anything close to that.

Comment by tgma 6 days ago

100% - they quit the much more lucrative WiFi business. The funny thing is the post, the likely the most interested party, who already spent $150+effort on a keyboard with TouchID admitted they are willing to spend $50. Literally the most excited customer who pays $150 is expecting a lower price than the keyboard. That simply shows the existence of such product is counterproductive to Apple's total revenue.

Comment by tgma 6 days ago

It's so much more fun to use a Mac without TouchID. The whole Safari password autofill experience is much faster and less annoying when you don't have TouchID (does not ask for any approval while you're logged in/Keychain is unlocked.) If there's a `defaults write` command I can run to emulate my Mac mini experience on a MacBook please let me know.

P.S. Liquid Glass + TouchID approval needed for every Keychain entry == Windows Vista

Comment by ninthcat 6 days ago

System Settings > Touch ID & Password > Use Touch ID for autofilling passwords. Turn this off on Macs with Touch ID and Safari will autofill without requiring Touch ID.