Apple Partners Expect Touch ID On iPads Oct. 16

Fresh off its big iPhone 6 event, Apple is expected to unveil more "iProducts" Oct. 16.

Apple unveiled the highly-anticipated iPhone 6 along with its mobile payment platform Apple Pay and the company's first wearable, the Apple Watch, on Sept. 9. This time, Apple will be showing off a new iPad as well as an iMac with Retina display in the company's Town Hall Auditorium in Cupertino, Calif., according to a report from Re/Code.

Apple partners expect to see Touch ID on the iPad after seeing the SDK release and it being such a big part of the iPhone 6.

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"I think we'll see Touch ID on the iPad. The Apple Pay thing really seals it," said Michael Oh, CEO of Boston-based Apple partner Tech Superpowers. "Touch ID has to come to the iPad. Mobile payments on the iPad is not really a must-have feature, but Apple Pay has this PayPal feature where you can use it on an e-commerce site. You have to have it. Doing it on an iPhone is a bit of a stretch. I don't know how much shopping is done on e-commerce sites on an iPhone, but it's often done on an iPad."

In conjunction with Touch ID, users can use Apple Pay to confirm online purchases with the touch of their finger, instead of punching in their credit card information, helping streamline the online payment process.

Partners also expect OS X Yosemite to be made available on the date of the event after it was shown at WWDC in early June.

"They’ve revamped the phone so I would assume they revamp the tablet," said Stephen Monteros, vice president of business development and strategic initiatives at SIGMAnet, an Ontario, Calif.-based solution provider and Apple partner. "I see Touch ID happening as a natural progression. I would hope to see OS X Yosemite being launched on that date as well. They don’t typically have a lot of events, so this would be the place to do it."

Touch ID on the iPad has partners excited for its usage with Apple Pay and its SDK being released to third-party app developers, but mobile security experts see Touch ID on iPads having an impact in the EMM space as well.

Next: iPads With Touch ID In The Mobile Enterprise

"I think it would help a lot. I would love to see Touch ID on every iOS device," said Ojas Rege, vice president of strategy at MobileIron. "I'd love to see biometric fingerprint sensors on every device in the enterprise. Right now it's only available on a subset of Apple devices, obviously. I'd love to see it on more devices because it would allow IT departments to have a consistent authentication strategy, and we'll get there. The reason it's not everywhere yet is because mobile is still maturing, so we will get there and I think the faster we get there the better, because then enterprises can give the same user experience across the different devices they deploy."

While partners are excited over Touch ID, some believe the new iPads won't have much of an upgrade in terms of hardware specifications.

"This is a feature refresher. I'm not expecting something dramatically different like a 13-inch iPad," said Patrick Moorhead, president and principal Analyst of Moor Insights & Strategy, a leading tech analyst firm based in Austin, Texas. "I'm expecting to see the iPad Air up to speed with certain specifications as the iPhone 6, with touch ID the A8 Processor and different memory configurations."

Moorhead, who was just one of five analysts at the Apple iPhone 6 launch event last month, said Apple doesn't need to change much about the iPad for it to be successful and doesn't need to make it thinner to make it better.

"It's a possibility it could be thinner, but I don’t think they have to do that to remain competitive," he said. "That's more of a marketing thing where they can come out and say 'We're one of the thinnest tablets out there.' I think Apple needs to watch themselves a little as Dell just came out with the Dell Venue 8 7000 that is 6mm thin. I don’t think Apple needs to be the thinnest to win."

PUBLISHED OCT. 3, 2014