Apple's implementation of Bluetooth 4.0 basically does what NFC does, but with better range:

http://gigaom.com/2013/09/10/with-ibeacon-apple-is-going-to-dump-on-nfc-and-embrace-the-internet-of-things/

Everything I've read about the fingerprint scanner suggests that it wouldn't respond to a lifted surface print or even a rubber cast. It actually takes a capacitive scan of the meat under the loops and whorls of your epidermis. I've even seen claims that it would reject a severed finger.

On topic, 64-bit in the iPhone was simply Apple's way of more easily explaining to laypeople that was coming out with the first implementation of the ARMv8 instruction set, which is superior in all kinds of ways besides bitness. It's true that 64-bit itself probably doesn't do much for this version of iPhone.

But it pays to think ahead. The sooner Apple's whole ecosystem transitions to 64-bit, the sooner they can shed the bloat of maintaining 32-bit compatibility. Furthermore, we might only be a couple years away from iPads that want 4GB of RAM or more, as tablet sales continue to disrupt laptops. And finally, I wonder how well a 64-bit ARM chip with 8 GB of RAM and a flash drive might run Mac OS X... 

Back to the original topic of this thread, here's an interesting perspective on Samsung's 64-bit plans:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/09/14/after-its-disastrous-exynos-5-octa-samsung-may-have-lost-apples-a7-contract-to-tsmc

Yes it's obvious that the author wants to tear down Samsung (hence the bombastic terms like "disastrous"), but try not to let that distract from all the actual, supportable facts which you won't see repeated in mainstream media.

I have one question though, does anybody know if the register count will double just like x86 processors did when switching from 32 bits to 64 bits ?

Yes, this was explicitly announced in the original Apple keynote: twice the general-purpose registers, twice the floating-point registers.  I wonder what "modern instruction set" refers to, aside from maybe fixed-width instructions which I think I read somewhere.  I thought the ARM instruction set was pretty modern already.

I think they mean by giving more the most recent instruction extensions such as giving the SIMD engines more flexible instructions sets.

Whateverz. Nintendo had 64 bits in 1996.

You mean 33 bits ;)

No, I've never heard of the Nintendo 33.

Well then thats what they should have namnamed it :P

Probably paving the way for phone inside pad/computer where you can dock your phone in your tablet/computer where the extra processing power is needed.