In 2013, Apple took everyone by surprise by launching the iPhone 5s with a fingerprint scanner. While Motorola and other Android OEMs had released phones with integrated fingerprint scanner before, Apple’s integration was at a much deeper level. 

Plus, the sensor was touch based, and not swipe-based as used by most Android OEMs, that further increased its usability. It was only earlier this year — more than 1.5 years after the iPhone 5s was launched — that Android devices started shipping with a usable touch based fingerprint scanner. HTC and Samsung both managed to neatly integrate a fingerprint scanner in their 2015 flagship that actually worked.

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Since Android itself lacks support for a fingerprint scanner, their use case is greatly limited. On the Galaxy S6, for example, the fingerprint scanner can only be used to unlock the handset, authentication purposes for Lastpass and Samsung account, and for signing into certain websites through Samsung’s stock browser. Compared this to iOS, where Touch ID can be used to authenticate purchases from the App Store, log in to apps, and more.

Thankfully with Android M, Google has baked in native support for fingerprint scanner and authentication into the OS, and has also provided developers with the appropriate APIs to implement the feature in their app. Using the APIs, developers will be able to use the fingerprint scanner for authentication purposes in their app. This ultimately means that we should see more apps and developer embrace fingerprint authentication in their app once Android M is released by Google.

Google baking in fingerprint scanner support in Android M also possibly indicates that the next generation Nexus handset will come with a fingerprint scanner. After all, the Nexus 6 was supposed to come with a fingerprint scanner, but Google decided not to include it at the last moment due to its poor performance.

If you are a developer, you can find more details about how to add fingerprint authentication support in your Android app here.