Apple Wants Passkeys to Replace Passwords: Here's Where You Can Try Them Out Now With iOS 16

[Vlad Soare]

The concept is very interesting and has merit, but until more websites start implementing it it's utterly useless.
Only a handful of websites use passkeys today, and some of them (e.g. PayPal) only for US-based users. So yeah, I love the idea, I can't wait to use it, but wake me up when it actually works.

 

[jaytv111]

I am not upgrading to iOS 16.1.1 because I di not want to be forced to use passkeys. I am not concerned about cyber attacks. I am more concerned with thugs.
Here’s a scenario for you: Thug kidnaps me, ties me up, and uses my face to unlock my phone. Then proceeds to visit my browsing history, unlocking any website he wants using only my face.
This scenario would not be possible with good passwords that are not stored on the phone.
If you want to get mire gruesome, on a fingerprint-secured device, all the thug needs is to cut off your thumb. You don’t have to be alive, the way you would if your face ID requires your eyes to focus.

You don't need to use passkeys. You're not forced to use passkeys, ever.

If you're kidnapped, the kidnapper can also demand your passwords or they will hurt you or kill you.

 

[erhock89]

Does anyone have a good source of documentation of how passkeys function from from a developer perspective?

From what I can tell, it's a public and private key...? Is there anything new to passkeys that I'm missing?

 

[jaytv111]

Does anyone have a good source of documentation of how passkeys function from from a developer perspective?

From what I can tell, it's a public and private key...? Is there anything new to passkeys that I'm missing?

You can read and find library support here: https://webauthn.io/

 

[robbyclark]

Apple is on a mission to get rid of traditional passwords for good, and a step towards that future is something called "Passkeys." Passkeys aim to entirely replace passwords in both apps and on the web and instead use either your finger or face as the password.

Passkeys are part of iOS 16 and macOS Ventura but also work on non-Apple devices and platforms such as Android and Windows. Apple's goal with Passkeys is to eliminate the need for users to ever type out, remember, or use a password again.

There are two scenarios for Passkeys: when you're using an Apple device and when you're on a Windows or Android device.

On an Apple Device

When you go to a website on your iPhone or iPad running iOS 16 or a Mac on macOS Ventura that supports Passkeys, the website will not prompt you to enter a password as you may expect it to. Instead, you'll simply be asked to authenticate with Touch ID or Face ID.

On a Windows or Android Device

On non-Apple devices, when you go to a website that supports Passkeys, you'll be asked to scan a QR code with your iPhone and then proceed to use Touch ID or Face ID as your actual password.

Passkeys will be more widely supported by apps and websites when iOS 16 and macOS Ventura are released to all users this fall, but there are already some websites that support Passkeys. Here are just a few apps and websites that are starting to roll out support:

• eBay
  
• Best Buy
  
• Cloudflare
  
• Microsoft
  
• Nvidia
  
• PayPal
  
• Carnival

In an interview earlier this month, Apple's director of platform product marketing Kurt Knight said, "This isn't a future dream to replace passwords. This is something that's going to be a road to completely replace passwords, and it's starting now."

Passkeys is just one of several new changes and features coming to iOS 16 and macOS Ventura which you can learn about in our respective roundups.

Article Link: Apple Wants Passkeys to Replace Passwords: Here's Where You Can Try Them Out Now With iOS 16

Wouldn't it be novel if Macrumors was on the list of sites that used passkeys!

 

[Vlad Soare]

How is this supposed to work with multiple devices?
I noticed that eBay offers this option. After I logged in on my Mac with my password, it asked me whether I wanted to be able to log in with my fingerprint from now on. And I said yes. So now if I log off and then try to log on again, my fingerprint is enough. Marvellous.
In the Keychain, besides the already saved password, a new entry appeared for the newly created passkey.
So far, so good.
But if I try to log in to eBay on my iPhone, it still asks for a password, and no fingerprint option is offered. The passkey that was created for my Mac doesn't seem to have been synchronized with and to work on my iPhone.
So it seems to me that the passkey can't replace a password completely, unless you only ever use one single device for logging in.
Am I missing anything?

 

[jaytv111]

How is this supposed to work with multiple devices?
I noticed that eBay offers this option. After I logged in on my Mac with my password, it asked me whether I wanted to be able to log in with my fingerprint from now on. And I said yes. So now if I log off and then try to log on again, my fingerprint is enough. Marvellous.
In the Keychain, besides the already saved password, a new entry appeared for the newly created passkey.
So far, so good.
But if I try to log in to eBay on my iPhone, it still asks for a password, and no fingerprint option is offered. The passkey that was created for my Mac doesn't seem to have been synchronized with and to work on my iPhone.
So it seems to me that the passkey can't replace a password completely, unless you only ever use one single device for logging in.
Am I missing anything?

It absolutely works across devices. Check that you have 1) the same iCloud account on both devices 2) iCloud Keychain is enabled on both devices. With that, it would automatically be able to access your Passkey on multiple devices.

You can double check the Passkey is in your keychain on your iPhone if you want. It should be there. In Settings under Passwords, look for the eBay entry to see that it shows a Passkey.

See if the eBay app works if you’re using the website on the phone.

 

[Vlad Soare]

It absolutely works across devices. Check that you have 1) the same iCloud account on both devices 2) iCloud Keychain is enabled on both devices. With that, it would automatically be able to access your Passkey on multiple devices.

You can double check the Passkey is in your keychain on your iPhone if you want. It should be there. In Settings under Passwords, look for the eBay entry to see that it shows a Passkey.

See if the eBay app works if you’re using the website on the phone.

It's the same account, and Keychain sync is enabled on both.
The first time I checked, the passkey wasn't present on the phone, but after your reply I checked again, and there it was. Maybe it needed a bit more time to sync.

However, it's still not working for logging in. When I navigate to ebay.com, Safari will offer to fill in the user name and password, but it won't acknowledge the existence of the passkey.
What I noticed is that the password entry in Keychain is linked to two websites, www.ebay.com and signin.ebay.com, whereas the passkey is linked just to www.ebay.com. But when I try to log in, Safari redirects me to signin.ebay.com. This might explain why it doesn't detect that the passkey is a match for the site.

Maybe the issue isn't in iOS or in iCloud. Maybe it's eBay's implementation that isn't entirely correct.

 

[jaytv111]

It's the same account, and Keychain sync is enabled on both.
The first time I checked, the passkey wasn't present on the phone, but after your reply I checked again, and there it was. Maybe it needed a bit more time to sync.

However, it's still not working for logging in. When I navigate to ebay.com, Safari will offer to fill in the user name and password, but it won't acknowledge the existence of the passkey.
What I noticed is that the password entry in Keychain is linked to two websites, www.ebay.com and signin.ebay.com, whereas the passkey is linked just to www.ebay.com. But when I try to log in, Safari redirects me to signin.ebay.com. This might explain why it doesn't detect that the passkey is a match for the site.

Maybe the issue isn't in iOS or in iCloud. Maybe it's eBay's implementation that isn't entirely correct.

They would be creating a problem if they don’t use one domain for logging in. Maybe try the eBay app.

Here is a demo site for Passkeys: passkeys.io It works across devices for me, one Passkey created on my iPhone works with my iPad automatically.