A patent application made by Samsung in South Korea has been published today, it reveals that the company is thinking about bringing swipe functionality to fingerprint sensors. This feature will make the fingerprint sensor even more useful as users will be able to get certain things done by simply swiping in a particular manner. We've already seen an implementation of this functionality in Google's new Pixel handsets, users can view notifications by simply swiping down on the fingerprint scanner that's located on the Pixel's back.
Samsung has patented something similar though it merits mentioning here that this patent was filed nearly two years ago and it has only just now been published. One example mentioned in the patent demonstrates how users can jump straight into a specific application by placing their finger on the sensor to unlock the phone and swiping it to automatically launch the app. The possibilities here are endless.
Just because Samsung has patented this functionality doesn't mean we're going to see it in a smartphone anytime soon. It may be out of the question entirely for the Galaxy S8 since the next flagship is expected to be the first smartphone to feature optical fingerprint recognition technology which will be baked inside the display itself.
