Hello bunq 🌈 and bunqers! 👋
On Android we more and more see different ways to unlock our phones ("In-Screen-Fingerprint-Scanners", Face-Unlocks similar to FaceID,..) and with that we are facing some issues:
- You can't test your app for all phones on Android, so you might miss something.
Some people for example are experiencing issues with In-Screen Fingerprint-Scanners and bunq Tap&Pay (not Google Pay), also the new Galaxy S10 has one!
- It's getting harder to "keep up". Some phones support "Face-ID" (not just by camera, "real" face-id), some have the Fingerprint-Scanner under the display right there were the bunq App has a button and who knows what's coming..
But I believe there is a solution since Android (9) Pie. It's called the "BiometricPrompt".
Similar to iOS the apps aren't handling the Fingerprint-Scan process themselves, the OS is doing it with a similar look across apps (like the "Face" at iOS in every App using Face-ID to unlock).
So the bunq App would "ask" the OS to authorise with a Fingerprint, or other biometric-solutions like "real" face-id, and the OS would do the rest.
That's how it looks like on my Google Pixel 2 XL:
What are the benefits? bunq wouldn't need to check their Tap&Pay and Login Process for every phone, just to make sure, that a button or so is not placed wrong. The OS would do this for bunq! And it should be easier to support new types of authentication-ways in the future.
I'm not an Android Dev, so I don't know if I'm completely wrong here with that, but here are some links to it:
* https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2018/06/better-biometrics-in-android-p.html
https://developer.android.com/reference/android/hardware/biometrics/package-summary
Oh wait, but isn't it only for Android 9? Well, I don't know, but all the new devices have Android 9 (OnePlus 6T, Galaxy S10, and new ones). And in the first link (*) you can find some infos about this.
Note: I also reported this in support some days ago, but I would also love to hear some other devs' feedback about it.
