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Tampa company has its fingerprint on top iPhone app

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By RICHARD MULLINS

rmullins@tampatrib.com

Published: September 10, 2009

For the second time this summer, Tampa is king of the iPhone app world.

The Inner Four software company again holds the No. 1 most downloaded spot on the Apple iPhone charts, this time with another gimmick.

The "Finger Security" program looks an awful lot like an FBI fingerprint scanner. It approves or rejects people's access to an iPhone when they press a thumb on its touch-sensitive screen.

A seemingly official vibration (from the phone's vibrating ringer) and a serious female voice announce whether the phone accepts or rejects the person's print. Hidden instructions give away the trick to making it work.

For a gimmick, Finger Security is doing well, generating 100,000 downloads a day and more than 635,000 copies since launching on Aug. 31. In the "lite" free version of the app, Inner Four sells small advertising space at the top of the application. A 99 cent version lacks the ads.

This follows up Inner Four's last breakout success, the "Mirror Free" program that was purely satirical and hit Apple's Top 10 most downloaded list this summer. That app merely showed a blank screen with frames so people could see their reflection.

Reporter Richard Mullins can be reached at (813) 259-7919.

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