TouchID is reliable in a way that previous fingerprint readers were not. I use it to unlock my phone and it just works. Every. Single. Time. Well, more like 95% of the time, but it is good enough. I used to not lock my phone because it was too annoying to unlock, so for me this relatively small improvement means that an important feature that wasn't available to me before suddenly is.
Ah, if the reader is truly better quality than earlier ones, then of course "first fingerprint reader that consistently works" would be a definite step forward.
That being said: I didn't have the Atrix et al (my first fingerprint reader is on my S6, and Samsung didn't even pretend they weren't borrowing heavily from Apple with this phone's design), but from what I had read, it performed pretty consistently as well. Looking up a random review of its performance:
"The Atrix prompts you to set up the fingerprint reader by swiping your left and right index fingers over it, and also asks you to provide a back-up password in case you go into the witness-protection scheme and have your fingerprints erased. In our tests, the biometric sensor responded to a quick swipe from either finger, so we found it fun and convenient to use. It seemed secure enough too, denying access to all of the interlopers we roped into our tests."
