Now that most of the Ubuntu Phone and Ubuntu Tablet owners are enjoying the new features implemented by the Canonical's Ubuntu Touch developers in the OTA-11 update released last week, it's time to look forward to the OTA-12.

Canonical already said a few weeks ago that the Ubuntu Touch OTA-12 software update for supported Ubuntu Phone devices, as well as the Ubuntu Tablet, was more about fixes than features. Still, Łukasz Zemczak's latest report suggests that the Ubuntu Touch devs are preparing the long-anticipated fingerprint reader support.

"OTA-12 landing velocity still rather low, with only a new bugfix release of ubuntu-ui-toolkit and a cherry-pick crasher fix for lxc. Our developers are currently busy with either pending features such as the fingerprint reader or helping out in our xenial-targeted initiative," says Łukasz Zemczak, Canonical Foundations.

While Biometric authentication will be a killer feature for Ubuntu Phones, for now, it is only supported by the Meizu PRO 5 Ubuntu Edition smartphone if Canonical decides to implement it in the upcoming OTA-12 software update, just like the Wireless Display (Miracast) functionality.

The development cycle of the Ubuntu Touch OTA-12 update has just started, and from the looks of it, it moves at a slow pace, with only a few fixes implemented so far. However, there's enough time for the Ubuntu Touch developers to put in some new features, such as the fingerprint readers for Meizu PRO 5 Ubuntu Edition owners.

Please note that the headline says "some Ubuntu Phones." Why? Because Canonical plans on bringing Ubuntu to more smartphones in the near future. Also, keep in mind that the UBports developers are supporting many other handsets that have a fingerprint reader.