Apple purchased AuthenTec last year for $356 million. AuthenTec is the company behind the iPhone 5S fingerprint sensor, a tiny device located underneath the phone's button. This sensor uses a finger's grooves and pores to identify its owner, and it gets to know you better each time you use it.

But according to Apple Insider, Touch ID was initially called FingerLoc, and the technology sometimes worked in fits and starts. AuthenTec cofounder F. Scott Moody once got IBM's chief technology officer to test out the sensor, only to have it misidentify him.

Eventually, AuthenTec revamped its sensor into a tiny device that only costs $0.80, and companies like Motorola, Fujitsu and Apple expressed its interest in the company.