My new MacBook Pro laptop has a nifty feature that at first I thought was a gimmick – the fingerprint scanner. Throughout my work day I may be on the phone, or leave the room, then when I return my screen has been locked for security purposes and I must authenticate to get back to work. With a simple press of my right index finger my identity is validated and I’m back to work on the laptop, quite convenient for me saving time and effort of typing a password on the keyboard and pressing the Return key.
![MacBook Pro](https://i0.wp.com/tualatinweb.com/new/wp-content/uploads/macbook-pro-fingerprint-300x211.jpeg?resize=300%2C211)
My youngest son has been urging me to turn this fingerprint scanning feature on with my Galaxy Note 4 smart phone, so yesterday I finally agreed and started the process. I basically had to swipe my finger across the Home button for 10 strokes, and click the Done prompt to get things all setup.
![Fingerprint scan setup](https://i0.wp.com/tualatinweb.com/new/wp-content/uploads/finger-scanner-setup-note-4-300x225.jpg?resize=300%2C225)
My phone screen locks way faster and more often than my laptop screen does, so now I get to save even more time and effort to unlock the phone quickly with a stroke of my finger. All is well, but wait. Within several minutes of turning on this new fangled feature I started receiving emails that three of my credit cards saved on my phone for Android Pay had been disconnected. Uh oh, I hadn’t consciously removed those credit cards, or had I?
It turns out that Android Pay on my phone wants to be ultra-secure, so when the the security mechanism on my phone was changed from a password to a fingerprint scan it decided to be overly cautious and remove the cards. It was a simple matter for me to launch the Android Pay app and re-add my three cards, they really weren’t deleted from the device just disabled until I added them back again. So within a minute or so I had all three of my credit cards working again in Android Pay. I use Android Pay every week and it’s so convenient to not carry my wallet every place that I need to shop, I just wish that the retailers would update their POS terminals to accept Android Pay and it’s competitor Apple Pay.
![Android Pay](https://i0.wp.com/tualatinweb.com/new/wp-content/uploads/Android_Pay___Wells_Fargo-300x141.jpg?resize=300%2C141)
Many companies accept Android Pay (McDonalds, Jamba Juice, Apple, New Seasons) and even banks are starting to accept it. So I’m hopeful that in my lifetime I will no longer have to carry a wallet, rather just a fully charged smart phone with all of my cards connected to Android Pay.