The Nexus 6 has been on sale for quite some time now, having launched towards the end of last year, but it’s still a very capable smartphone. Not to mention with a new version of Android coming up and Project Fi now available for early testers the Nexus 6 is here to stay. Ever since it launched however, we’ve been hearing of rumors that it was supposed to launch with a fingerprint reader of some kind. It was said that Motorola couldn’t achieve this goal in the end because all available stock for fingerprint sensors had been snapped up by Apple and Samsung. It seems this feature was carried through to the final phases of development, as new leaked photos show.
Coming out of China, some fresh photos have leaked out showing the Motorola logo underneath the back panel with connections that lead back to the mainboard. Underneath is what could have been a fingerprint sensor, or at least a placeholder for the actual sensor in the final product. We’ve heard before that the Nexus 6 was destined to launch with a fingerprint sensor, but it looks like Google abandoned the project due to not only the lack of components on the market, but also to make fingerprint authentication better. During Google I/O 2015 earlier this year, we saw Google announce Android M, with more of a focus on fingerprint authentication than any other release. This would mark the first version of Android to feature support for fingerprint sensors out of the box.
Whether or not the next Nexus device, pegged for a release this Fall, will ship with a fingerprint sensor remains to be seen, but it would seem more likely than not at this point. Not only because Android M will feature fingerprint sensor support, but also because of Android Pay. The two rumored Nexus devices will be a focus point for Android Pay, and Google will surely want to make sure they are as secure as they can be. So, while last year’s Nexus might have come close to featuring a fingerprint reader, it seems as though this year we’ll see them for real.
