To mark World Password Day, Apple has announced a partnership with Google and Microsoft to get rid of them. According to joint press releases, the three companies are working on new capabilities for that would “expand support for a common passwordless sign-in standard” across website and apps using your iPhone.
Apple hails the partnership as “radically more secure when compared to passwords and legacy multi-factor technologies such as one-time passcodes sent over SMS” and focuses on two main components:
- Allow users to automatically access their FIDO sign-in credentials (referred to by some as a “passkey”) on many of their devices, even new ones, without having to reenroll every account.
- Enable users to use FIDO authentication on their mobile device to sign in to an app or website on a nearby device, regardless of the OS platform or browser they are running.
Here’s how it’ll work. The new passwordless process will let you choose an iPhone as a method of authentication by storing a FIDO passkey on the device. Then when you sign into the app or service on any device, your iPhone will receive a prompt to use Face ID, Touch ID, or a passcode to allow access. It’s similar to the way Apple uses trusted devices as two-factor authenticators when logging into iCloud accounts and Apple services.
Apple doesn’t give a release for the new capabilities but says they are “expected to become available across Apple, Google, and Microsoft platforms over the course of the coming year.”
Author: Michael Simon, Executive Editor
Michael Simon has been covering Apple since the iPod was the iWalk. His obsession with technology goes back to his first PC—the IBM Thinkpad with the lift-up keyboard for swapping out the drive. He's still waiting for that to come back in style tbh.