Alleged super-secure Turing Phone will miss its December ship date
ANDROID SECURITY
With a rising number of security issues surrounding mobile devices, the Turing Phone sounded great when it was announced about a year ago. It won't arrive on time however, based on a news update released on Friday spotted by Android Police.
"We are inching closer to fulfill our promise of delivering a truly secure OS while allowing you the ability to download apps that you're familiar with and use regularly.
TRI needs more time to make sure when the Turing Phone is delivered it'll be one of the best mobile devices ever conceived. To accomplish this, we ask for your patience and continuous support."
What makes the Turing Phone a potential game-changer when it comes to security?
The handset stores its secure private keys on the device hardware using the Turing Imitation Key, so it doesn't have to rely on servers or connectivity for authentication purposes.
The Turing Phone even eschews some common connections that could allow others to get your data, such as a USB port or a headphone jack. Yes, you'll need a Bluetooth headset if you want to listen to music using a Turing Phone.
The company even plans to create a method to store individual bits of your files on other users Turing Phones; something Turing calls "wind computing."
The idea is that distributed data across various handsets could be more secure, less traceable and save on storage capacity; I'm a bit skeptical on that for several reasons: For starters, you have to hope that Turing sells a large quantify of these handsets.
Since the original December 18 shipping deadline won't be met, Turing is upgrading all pre-orders to the next higher storage capacity: If you ordered a 16 GB model, you'll get a 64 GB version, for example.
Customers who pre-ordered can also cancel for a full refund of the phone, which starts at $610. Turing will announce a new ship date before the end of this month.