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iPhone 6S to feature improved Touch ID sensor

Apple’s next smartphone, the iPhone 6S, will feature a much-improved Touch ID sensor housed within its home button, according to one analyst.

The company tends to follow up major redesigns with more iterative updates. After last year’s iPhone 6, then, we’re expecting a similar-looking iPhone 6S towards the end of 2015.

Most of the improvements will not be visible, then, and an analyst has recently suggested what one of those subtle improvements might be.

In a recent note to investors (as picked up on by 9to5Mac), KGI analyst Ming Chi Kuo claims that Apple is cranking up its shipments of Touch ID sensors to 262 million units. That’s a 77 percent increase over last year.

The Touch ID sensor headed to the iPhone 6S won’t be the same old fingerprint-scanning unit we’ve grown accustomed to since the iPhone 5S, but will be a new and improved model. It will offer “a better and safer Apple Pay user experience with reduced reading errors.”

Read More: iPhone 6 vs iPhone 5S – Should you upgrade?

Just in case you were wondering, Apple isn’t about to do away with its distinctive home button just yet. While a recently revealed patent has pointed to a possible buttonless future for the iPhone line, that future won’t start with the iPhone 6S, as Kuo says that “complex algorithms and sapphire cover lens are also required.”

That kind of radical design touch isn’t something we would have expected to see in a mere ‘S’ model anyway, for the reasons outlined at the outset.

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