Apple Delivered A Game-Changing Innovation With The iPhone 5S And The Reviewers Are Freaking Out Over It

The fingerprint scanner Apple built into the iPhone 5S is a smash hit with reviewers.

It's getting nearly universal acclaim. Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal calls it a game changer.

It sounds like a major innovation that is going to completely change how we interact with our phones. Swiping to unlock is going to be a thing of the past.

Here's a sample of the reactions:

David Pogue at NYT: "It's nothing like the balky, infuriating fingerprint-reader efforts of earlier cellphones. It's genuinely awesome; the haters can go jump off a pier."

Walt Mossberg at WSJ: "After using Touch ID, I found it annoying to go back to typing in passcodes on my older iPhone."

John Gruber of Daring Fireball: "Touch ID is way faster than 'fast enough'. I'd call it 'I can't believe it works this quickly' fast. It's also very accurate - only a handful of times over the past week have I had to try a second time, and each of those times, I hadn't really squared up my finger with the sensor."

Jim Dalrymple of Loop Insight: "The fingerprint sensor solved a problem and makes my handling of the iPhone more efficient. That's what a feature should do."

Myriam Joire Engadget: "And it is indeed fast: the scanner was able to pick up all of our fingers in fractions of a second and from any angle. It's so natural, in fact, that we almost forgot that passwords and unlock screens even existed on the 5s; on countless occasions we tried to unlock the iPhone 5 and 5c with the scanner before realizing that we had to use the "old-fashioned" slide-to-unlock method."

Scott Stein, CNET: "A few previous smartphones have added fingerprint sensors before, like the Motorola Atrix, but those were more awkward bars that needed finger-swiping. The Touch ID-enabled home button feels invisible; it works with a tap, can recognize your finger from many angles, and feels like it has less of a fail rate than fingerprint sensors I've used on laptops. It's impressive tech. It worked on all my fingers, and even my toe (I was curious)."