Do you ever get that feeling of someone watching you as you try to tap in your PIN code on your smartphone, trying to guess the pattern you make and therefore the digits you type in? Such knowledge would be handy in case said mysterious onlookers have plans to divest you of your device. If so, worry no longer. Cyanogen, Inc. has devised a new unlock feature that will mix up those numbers every time you try to unlock your phone, causing confusion for the would-be thief. And maybe even for you.
Scramble PIN Layout is the name of the feature and it isn’t exactly a new idea. Some programs, in particular some online games, have implemented such a feature in order to discourage account theft. It works by relocating numbers in different positions every time you need to enter a PIN, making it impossible to track which digits were entered simply based on their location. On the flip side, it also takes longer to enter said digits, and those with keener eyesight might actually be able to more clearly see those numbers.
Cyanogen’s similar feature is, of course, optional so you are definitely free to ignore it if you don’t subscribe to that theory. Actually, you might not be able to use it in the first place. Cyanogen Inc.’s tweet clearly states it is a new feature of Cyanogen OS, their “commercially-distributed OS, as opposed to CyanogenMod (open-source community-driven Android OS backed by Cyanogen Inc)”. Cyanogen Inc seems to be slowly building up its portfolio of features for Cyanogen OS.
In the meantime, on the more widely available open source side, work has started on getting Android 5.0 Lollipop into CyanogenMod. Naturally, this will be for the next CyanogenMod 12 veresion, as CM11 will remain solidly on KitKat. At this point, there isn’t anything yet to see, but it’s still good to know that the groundwork has already been laid.
[CORRECTION] This feature is also available on the open source CyanogenMod version 11. To see the option, you will have to enable PIN as your unlock mode first. Thanks for the correction, Nathan and Leigh!
SOURCE: Cyanogen, CyanogenMod
VIA: Reddit
This fuctionality is also there in the CM11.
I hope stable versions come to the Sprint Note 3