Your iPhone's fingerprint sensor might soon unlock your car

Your iPhone can already act as your wallet, camera and flashlight, but it may eventually replace one more everyday object: your car keys.

Buried in a report from Bloomberg about Apple scaling back its plans to build a self-driving car was this nugget: "Apple executives had imagined an electric car that could recognize its driver by fingerprint and autonomously navigate with the press of a button."

The idea of the iPhone unlocking and starting your car is pretty cool whether or not Apple actually builds a car. Apple has reportedly had a self-driving car in the works since 2014, and thus far hundreds of jobs have been terminated as the company struggles to choose a direction.

Now the plan is apparently for Apple to figure out what it's going to do by the end of 2017. Until then it's interesting to pick apart what the tech giant has imagined. And Apple's plan wouldn't be the first system to unlock a car from a phone.

While Apple patented the idea of a device sending an activation message to open a vehicle in May 2016, apps and other software have beat Apple to the punch. There are already apps such as Viper SmartStart, and a BMW-specific app, that allow you to unlock your car from your smartphone. And Hyundai has a BlueLink app on Google Play (which also works with Android Wear smartwatches) that lets you unlock your car, locate it if you've lost it in a parking lot, and start the engine. The list goes on.

Nonetheless the prospect of unlocking your car via your phone's fingerprint sensor is compelling, and hopefully we won't have to wait till the end of 2017 to see it.