Note 7 iris scanner should soon be accessible for 3rd party app developers!

As you well know, Samsung's Galaxy Note 7 will rock not only the fingerprint scanner we've grown accustomed to, but also an iris scanner, which should, supposedly, be much harder for hackers to spoof. Samsung touts this tool as a new comfortable way to keep your phone securely locked but doesn't want to stop there. There are new uses of the Note security introduced with the new phablet, with more to come.

At launch, the Note 7 will allow users to lock and even completely hide apps and content behind a biometric scan. We can see how this would make great use of the iris scanner – if you are trying to access your locked content, you wouldn't need to readjust your grip to tap the fingerprint sensor. Since you are already looking at the phone anyway, a quick scan of the eyes wouldn't be that much of a problem.

However, more excitingly, Samsung will also be integrating the iris scanner with the Samsung Pass program. It's a special API, which allows 3rd party app developers to make use of the hardware biometric sensors for content locking. Sammy said it will be partnering up with a few banks to help them integrate iris scanning into their official apps, but we see no reason for other developers to jump in as well – from social media to note-taking, to browsers — we'll see how it goes.