The Galaxy S7 is open to the largest number of fingerprint-enabled apps.
Though Android 6.0 Marshmallow doesn’t bring a significant visual change to the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, the under-the-hood improvements are definitely welcomed either way. And with this release, that means the new phones support Android 6.0’s fingerprint APIs — so you can use a quick tap on the home button to unlock any app that has been written to accommodate Marshmallow’s latest security feature.
What we didn’t know up until this point is whether the integration of Marshmallow fingerprint support would cause problems with Samsung’s own legacy fingerprint APIs, which have been around since the Galaxy S5 and adopted in a surprisingly large number of apps. Thankfully Samsung has managed to let the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge support both forms of fingerprint authentication at once, so no matter how your apps of choice want to be secure, the phones can handle it without issue.
Perhaps most important, it’s completely opaque as to which APIs you’re actually tapping into when the app surfaces the challenge for your fingerprint. Samsung? Google? Doesn’t matter. Just wait for the prompt, put your finger on the home button and you’ll be authenticated in short order.
Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 edge
- Galaxy S7 review
- Galaxy S7 edge review
- U.S. unlocked Galaxy S7
- Should you upgrade to the Galaxy S7?
- Best SD cards for Galaxy S7
- Join our Galaxy S7 forums
Unlocked
AT&T
Sprint
T-Mobile
Verizon