The iPhone 5s Secure Enclave
Brian Roemmele (via John Gruber):
There are numerous reasons Apple moved to the A7 processor. One reason is the hardware requirements of Touch ID. To economically create the Secure Enclave, Apple needed a processor that is already aware of the concept of encryption and security at a native level and has the dedicated hardware to make a segregated and secure area with in the processor architecture.
Presumably, easy phone unlocking is just the beginning of Apple’s plans for the fingerprint scanner.
