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Apple passwords deserve an app

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Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#31

Post by larrik »

taylorlapeyre wrote: post #18
hnrodey wrote: post #4

I tried going all-in on using iCloud Keychain (correct term?) for my passwords from having previously used LastPass. In short. 1. The experience on Windows is terrible. They can claim it's cross-platform but it's truly a sub-par product. 2. On Mac it's tied specifically to Safari. I use Safari a lot but if I'm in a different browser then my passwords are unavailable. 3. The GUI is buried in System Settings. Heaven fo…

Apple makes a iCloud Passwords chrome extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/icloud-passwords/p...

Windows only! It doesn't work on Mac!

I honestly didn't know that was possible before that extension.

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#32

Post by reaperducer »

hnrodey wrote: post #4

I tried going all-in on using iCloud Keychain (correct term?) for my passwords from having previously used LastPass. In short. 1. The experience on Windows is terrible. They can claim it's cross-platform but it's truly a sub-par product. 2. On Mac it's tied specifically to Safari. I use Safari a lot but if I'm in a different browser then my passwords are unavailable. 3. The GUI is buried in System Settings. Heaven fo…

I use Safari a lot but if I'm in a different browser then my passwords are unavailable.

No, it's not. I alternate between Safari, Firefox, and Duck. If a password I use in Safari isn't stored in Firefox, I copy it from the Keychain program and paste it into Firefox. Firefox then asks to save it. No problem.

The GUI is buried in System Settings.

It has its own program. /Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#33

Post by great_psy »

I have been using the Apple manager since LastPass got hacked recently.

Hot take , but … I like the lack of integration in other operating systems/ browsers.

I see my phone as a Secure Enclave, and my passwords should be disconnected from potentially insecure systems. I see the phone as those keychain one time passwords where you have to press a physical button to get a key.

Is it inconvenient to get a password, yes. But it offers the piece of mind that I only have to worry about iPhone/Apple exploits, instead of chrome+firefox+windows+Linux+Apple+iphone.

I don’t think in this case Apple is not doing the integration because of this security feature, but I think it is a feature non the less. Of course you can always choose not to install the extensions even if they existed, but the point is that if they existed it would lower security.

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#34

Post by comex »

whstl wrote: post #17
hnrodey wrote: post #4

I tried going all-in on using iCloud Keychain (correct term?) for my passwords from having previously used LastPass. In short. 1. The experience on Windows is terrible. They can claim it's cross-platform but it's truly a sub-par product. 2. On Mac it's tied specifically to Safari. I use Safari a lot but if I'm in a different browser then my passwords are unavailable. 3. The GUI is buried in System Settings. Heaven fo…

There seems to be a Google Chrome extension called "iCloud Passwords" but it only has two stars, so I don't think you'll be positively surprised. Also, on iPhone it's ok-ish but on Mac the experience is a subpar too: Keychain, the app you use to view your passwords, feels like a 90s Visual Basic application. Plus you can't organize your accounts, and even if you prefix them to "sort by name", the special name you giv…

Note that macOS now has three “apps” to view your passwords, three different UIs for the same database. There’s Keychain Access, there’s the Passwords section of System Settings, and there’s the Passwords section of Safari preferences (which is the same UI as the pre-Ventura System Preferences app’s Passwords section).

The other two have even less organization functionality than Keychain Access, so this probably doesn’t help you, but the blog post was talking about the System Settings version so I wanted to point it out.

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#35

Post by reaperducer »

cjdoc29 wrote: post #2

I really like Apple's implementation of passwords, passkeys, etc. But...I had a hard time explaining this to my mom. She uses it to generate her passwords and fill-in within Safari which is great! But there's no "Passwords" app, and she didn't know to go into Settings to reference a password when Safari doesn't recognize a password field (probably the website's fault). 2FA is also a confusing experience, but 2FA is a…

But there's no "Passwords" app

It's called Keychain Access.

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#36

Post by Spivak »

tikkun wrote: post #26

While we're on the subject, other Apple things that deserve an app: Dashboard/status - I have a smart lock, and they have their own app, where all it really does is show the current status of the lock and let me toggle it. There are quite a few apps like this. It'd be nice if they could all be condensed into a dashboard/status app that could just tweak values and show current status. Apple Home attempts to do some of…

Isn't that first one Home/iHome/HomeKit whatever you wanna call it? If your lock doesn't support HomeKit there's a good chance Homebridge does.

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#38

Post by abraxas »

If Apple password manager is anywhere as well thought out as their 2FA for Apple TV then I don't want to come next to it within 10 light years.

Every time it asked me to either "confirm on your iPad" (I have 3 of those around the house) or "confirm on your iPhone" (I have 0 of those) I was ready to hurl shit. SMS option buried in some dark pattern, of course.

If these companies want to encroach in the secrets management space they really need to hire more qa and test more than a single happy path. The number of failure modes in these systems is astonishing for the billions of dollars these companies can throw at the problem.

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#39

Post by sylens »

Even if macOS and iOS are my primary work (and personal) platforms these days, I still like a solution that works great on Windows, Linux, and Android as well.

I'm pretty happy with 1Password - it does all of the things mentioned in this article with more platform support

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#40

Post by ElijahLynn »

One problem with that is if a person has a non-Apple product, Apple won't build the app cross-platform, so they are even further locked into Apple hardware then.

Might not affect that many people. But it would surely limit choice for those who don't even know about the lock-in later in their lives.

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