The Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy Note 10 are ready to receive the Android 10 OS Beta. The update has been announced ready for the United States yesterday after rolling out in other markets. We’ve mentioned the major features and improvements but we’ve forgotten one important detail: the iris scanner on the said phones has been updated as well. You see, the South Korean tech giant removed the feature from the Galaxy S10 and Note 10. We thought Samsung would forget to update the iris scanner but it didn’t.
The latest Android 10 beta for the S9 and Note 10 brings some improvement to the iris scanner function. The beta program makes the phone now compatible with the Biometric API of Google. The latter offers in-app user authentication.
The iris scanner feature has been useful in authentication and mobile security. It’s supposed to be fool-proof because, in theory, there are no two irises alike. The feature can be found in the following devices: Galaxy S8, Galaxy S9, Galaxy Note 8, and Galaxy Note 9. It is usually used for Samsung Pay, Samsung Secure Folder, and phone unlocking.
It’s an ideal solution but Samsung only worked on an in-house SDK so support isn’t as widespread. The result is not many developers use the feature. With the Android 10 beta update bringing the Biometric API, hopefully, the iris scanner can be used for other apps like Google Pay, LastPass, and even banking mobile apps for sign-in. Sadly, the Note 8 and Galaxy S8 won’t be able to benefit from the API because the update will only be up to Android 9 Pie.
