There is no scalable market. They want to control the hardware for quality and margins. They already sell a keyboard with Touch ID included. Mac accessories are far from their focus area.
If they made something that was just the sensor and logic board that they already manufacture, and sold it for exactly the same US$149 retail price _or more_, there are people in this thread who would buy it.
That’s not enough volume for Apple. This is a company comfortable sitting on $100bn in cash.
If they sold 1 million of those, it’s not worth it for them. Even 10 million units likely isn’t something they’re interested in, and I doubt they’d see anything close to that.
100% - they quit the much more lucrative WiFi business. The funny thing is the post, the likely the most interested party, who already spent $150+effort on a keyboard with TouchID admitted they are willing to spend $50. Literally the most excited customer who pays $150 is expecting a lower price than the keyboard. That simply shows the existence of such product is counterproductive to Apple's total revenue.
There is no scalable market. They want to control the hardware for quality and margins. They already sell a keyboard with Touch ID included. Mac accessories are far from their focus area.
They don’t because it doesn’t make sense to.
Edit: If you’re downvoting, feel free to say why!