According to Apple Insider, several new documents came to light last week showing that Apple may be gearing up to deliver a gesture-based unlock function for its mobile devices. On April 16, 2014, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office published two Apple patent applications, both of which are entitled "Gesture entry techniques." One patent filing deals with the system as a whole, while the other is focused on entering and setting gestures on a mobile device. Together these two ideas form the basis of a device unlocking feature in which a user draws a pattern on screen through the use of illuminated discs.
This is not a new idea, since in fact Google introduced pattern unlocking for the Android platform back in 2008. Google’s version accepts gesture input on a grid of dots to unlock a mobile device. As the patents describe it, Apples gesture-based unlock system is more sophisticated than previous implementations.
Basically, we are looking at additional provisions that have been included designed to add more complexity to the patterns. The user will actually have more control over how the pattern works in terms of size, as well as position of the elements.
By having the ability to make these changes, the user can make it more or less difficult to both hit and rearrange the elements’ position. The concept behind this is that a hacker will be more frustrated in trying to break the code because the patterns are less predictable and therefore harder to figure out.
Another other interesting feature includes the fact that the system can also selectively use invisible dots. These are elements which are not present on the user interface they will however work in unison with visible hit points to track a path. Will that be enough to frustrate a hacker? If not, then how about the ability to make speed of your entry a factor? When you couple pauses and other timing elements as part of the code, you see how many different variables care be created.
Some of you may be thinking that this is still quite hackable and there should be some other element to make it more secure. Well, it seems that Apple thought about that too. The system described in the patent also allows for the use of multi-finger input. Yes, something that is very similar to everyday texting and something that most users are quite familiar with. It would rank patterns as high or low based on how long they were, how complex, how random, as well as other factors.
This definitely describes a gesture-based pattern recognition that is very flexible with the ability to have the user change it and include various elements to guarantee a secure device. However, considering that as you read this, Apple is suing Samsung for patent infringement with respect to its “slide to unlock” feature, along with the fact that it is including its Touch ID on more devices, it leaves a lot of room for doubt as to whether or not Apple will actually go forward with this concept.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
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