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Apple passwords deserve an app

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Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#181
post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can store non-passwords in there too. Secure notes, your own signing certificates, keys, root CAs, and specific self signed certs you've accepted for SSL.

Still, none of that means anything to the average user. Searching for "passwords" in Spotlight should also take you to your passwords

Make an alias to Keychain access. Name it "Passwords" and have that a directory that is indexed by Spotlight (the Utilities directory under Applications where Keychain Access is found works fine).

This will then show up in the launchpad. https://i.imgur.com/IRPOMC5.png

Searching for 'pass' in Spotlight does bring up Keychain access - as that's in the apps list of Keywords... however the list of apps is way down on the scrolling https://i.imgur.com/KFUC0G0.png - it found 'password' as a string in 100 python files that I had to scroll through first.

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#182
post #39

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

Exactly, this is why many of the Apple services are useless unless you are 110% in their ecosystem. At least Apple Music is the one app they somehow made available on Android and Windows.

Apple Music started its life as Beats IIRC, so a good cross-plat UX was part of the acquisition. See also Shazam.

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#183

I follow Ricky Mondello, who works on the Apple password keeper functionality — they post interesting tidbits pretty regularly. https://twitter.com/rmondello https://hachyderm.io/@rmondello

+1 Ricky is the best. They also made a very useful Shortcut [1] that offers quick access to the Passwords on your Home Screen or Mac menubar. [1]: https://rmondello.com/passwords-shortcut/

clicking this link throws a bunch of warnings in my browser, and my university internet blocks me from seeing the actual website :(

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#184
post #150
post #54

>(And it all syncs across your devices, for free?!) IMO the worst part about apple keychain is they can't be used with Chrome (the most common browser for mac!)

You can, Apple has an extension for iCloud Keychain. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/icloud-passwords/p...

> iCloud Passwords is a Chrome extension for Windows users…

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#185
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…

> 1. The experience on Windows is terrible. They can claim it's cross-platform but it's truly a sub-par product. Like a lot of other Apple stuff, I'm only able to use it because I don't use anything non-Apple for anything "serious" that involves a GUI. Windows is for gaming, Linux is my file storage and docker-service-running server that I only interact with over SSH and Web. Ditto Notes, all their Office-type progra…

> Yeah, this is super fucking weird. You'd think this would be connected in some fashion to "keychain", but nope.

Other browsers used to be able to use it. I do think it’s a really thorny issue—“allow this application to access all saved passwords?” is a pretty damn scary permission to include. Up there with the “allow this application to control your computer” permission that is used for accessibility apps (which apps can abuse to read passwords, if I understand correctly).

Apple’s tradition. Make the platform more secure, add an exception for first-party apps, and let the other browsers fuck off.

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope not. I'm patiently waiting on 1Password to release their implementation of passkeys so I can have it work on all my devices, Apple or not.

Just use Passkeys. Any account that allows 2FA allows multiple second factors. You should be setting up backup second factors anyway if you don't want to risk getting permanently locked out of all of your accounts. Plus, putting second factors in the same location as your first factor (e.g., 1Password) seems to pretty much defeat the entire purpose of having a second factor. If you're using strong passwords with 1Pas…

Well, with the exception of AWS, unless something has changed recently — they notoriously only support one second factor (i.e. if you use YubiKeys or similar, you can only use one).

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#187
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there's no "Passwords" app It's called Keychain Access.

The problem is Keychain Access doesn't pass the "mom test" (would you average consumer - e.g. your mom - actually use it)

No password manager passes that as far as I'm concerned.

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just use Passkeys. Any account that allows 2FA allows multiple second factors. You should be setting up backup second factors anyway if you don't want to risk getting permanently locked out of all of your accounts. Plus, putting second factors in the same location as your first factor (e.g., 1Password) seems to pretty much defeat the entire purpose of having a second factor. If you're using strong passwords with 1Pas…

Well, with the exception of AWS, unless something has changed recently — they notoriously only support one second factor (i.e. if you use YubiKeys or similar, you can only use one).

Yeah, AWS is the only exception I've encountered :)

But if you have backup second factors (you have backup second factors, right?) and you're worried about Passkey lock-in for whatever reason… just use that other second factor for AWS or any other account which supports only one.

Re: Apple passwords deserve an app

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny situation, there's another thread I was replying to someone who wanted to shift back to native apps instead of cross plat electron apps (for performance reasons). Well, Apple Passwords on Windows is a good example of how that turns out in reality. I believe it's using WinUI. While the performance is nice, the experience is entirely unlike what you get on Mac and winds up making you wish you were using another s…

Apple had (has?) Cocoa ported on Windows actually, so whatever they could so on macOS, they could do on Windows as well. Cocoa as such is cross-platform.

It was a product briefly. OPENSTEP Enterprise. There was talk of selling licenses to distribute but that never happened
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