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Tap your iPhone to unlock your Mac

knocktounlock.com

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Re: Tap your iPhone to unlock your Mac

#151

Post by aroch »

moonie1 wrote: post #147
aroch wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> • Mounting and verification of DMG is slow (Zip CRC and Developer ID signatures give you verification too). It takes a few seconds, hardly that much slower than opening a zip >• "Nothing happens" after clicking DMG — user has to find DMG mount on a cluttered desktop 1) Unless you've really fobbed up your view settings, mounted drives show up, in alpha order, in the farthest right row. 2) DMG's have a bless value th…

> No it doesn't, the DMG is automatically mounted and the app run if they do this It really does, especially if you're one of the 99.999% of users who deletes their dmg's after installing. Then you just see an app icon with a big (?) in the middle of it.

You're not "installing" if you just run it from the DMG, so your point is moot

Re: Tap your iPhone to unlock your Mac

#152

Post by beloch »

Back when KDE got the ability to wake on bluetooth, I set my phone up to unlock my computer whenever I was in the room. This eliminated logging on, but at the price of requiring my phone to have bluetooth running all day. This was back when batteries were not so large as they are now and bluetooth was a bit of a battery hog. Of course, this was the dumb-phone era too, and I was accustomed to charging my phone twice a week! Charging it every day was too much of a hassle so I soon went back to logging on with the keyboard. I charge my phone every day anyways now, so it would be zero trouble to use wake-on-bluetooth again, but the novelty isn't there and logging in via keyboard is easy so I haven't bothered.

This tap-your-phone stuff is similar, except less convenient. You actually have to take your phone out of your pocket and then tap on it, as opposed to just walking up to your computer and having it unlock automatically. In fact, this is probably slower than logging in via keyboard, depending on how fast a draw you are.

Re: Tap your iPhone to unlock your Mac

#154

Post by mikeash »

aroch wrote: post #143
mikeash wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing says you couldn't do that with a zip file.

Actually everything says you can't do that with a zip. Custom background images and layouts are folder properties not supported by a zipped directory (or really any directory that isn't a DMG's top-level dir)

Layout works fine for me in testing, but the custom background image does not. I wonder what causes that. The .DS_Store file is present and clearly has a reference to the file in the unzipped version, but it doesn't show.

Re: Tap your iPhone to unlock your Mac

#155

Post by cmiller1 »

joshstrange wrote: post #31
joshdance wrote: post #4

This seems like magic. What method does it use to unlock your Mac with no password?

It doesn't actually unlock your machine. If you lock your computer it will not work. What it does is put up a page that looks nearly identical to the login page with small changes. It's a cool app (I tried it) but I'm disappointed that I can't find a way to toggle the lock via Alfred/Keyboard shortcut. I can get in the habit of hitting a key combination/alfred command when I get up but having to click the icon in the…

I noticed it hijacks the wake up when I put my computer to sleep, which is available with a key command (either command-option-power or command-option-eject depending on your keyboard) and using the energy saver system preference panel you can configure it to automatically lock after x amount of time.

Re: Tap your iPhone to unlock your Mac

#156

Post by frankus »

beloch wrote: post #152

Back when KDE got the ability to wake on bluetooth, I set my phone up to unlock my computer whenever I was in the room. This eliminated logging on, but at the price of requiring my phone to have bluetooth running all day. This was back when batteries were not so large as they are now and bluetooth was a bit of a battery hog. Of course, this was the dumb-phone era too, and I was accustomed to charging my phone twice a…

The big breakthrough here is that Bluetooth LE uses a totally negligible amount of power (such that many devices can run for years on a CR2032 button cell).

Also, you don't need to take your phone out of your pocket to tap it (it doesn't have to touch the computer, just any moderately firm object, such as a knuckle through a pants pocket).

Re: Tap your iPhone to unlock your Mac

#157

Post by frankus »

gfunk911 wrote: post #2

This seems insecure. If I leave my phone by my computer, or if my bag gets stolen with my phone and computer in it, I'm in trouble. That said, it's pretty cool, and I like the website design.

That's a totally valid point. My guess it that they assumed most users would keep their phone in a pocket (since it's easier to tap than if it's buried in a bag).

In any case it's a big upgrade from people who leave their computer unlocked all day. I'd love to see them add automatic proximity-based locking.

Re: Tap your iPhone to unlock your Mac

#158

Post by wikyd »

joshstrange wrote: post #127
wikyd wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true at all. I just locked my laptop using ctrl + shift + power and was unable to unlock it using the app.

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying or maybe you didn't understand me. I am saying the it doesn't use the built-in locking mechanism but instead it's own "screen lock" that looks similar.

Out of curiosity, how can you tell it's not the built-in locking mechanism? The lock screen looks the same, except for the glow around the avatar to me. It even shows the alerts in the top right corner. The screen locks in the same fashion as normal (using the hotkeys, waiting for it to time out, etc), too.

What am I missing that makes you think it's not the built-in locking mechanism?

Re: Tap your iPhone to unlock your Mac

#159

Post by wikyd »

wikyd wrote: post #125
joshstrange wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't actually unlock your machine. If you lock your computer it will not work. What it does is put up a page that looks nearly identical to the login page with small changes. It's a cool app (I tried it) but I'm disappointed that I can't find a way to toggle the lock via Alfred/Keyboard shortcut. I can get in the habit of hitting a key combination/alfred command when I get up but having to click the icon in the…

I don't think that's true at all. I just locked my laptop using ctrl + shift + power and was unable to unlock it using the app.

Oh, also, I see now that I have a very unclear typo. I am able to unlock my computer using Knock after using the system hot key commands to lock the screen.

Re: Tap your iPhone to unlock your Mac

#160

Post by mbreese »

mikeash wrote: post #103
mbreese wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I disagree on the disagreement. :) If I download a dmg file, I assume the author knows how to write software for a Mac. If I download a zip, I assume they don't. At least they need to change the name from "latest.zip" to "Knock for Mac.zip" or something like that. Even better would be having it in the Mac App Store. Since you need to download the iPhone version from the App Store anyway, it would be better to kee…

Right, companies like Rogue Amoeba, Flying Meat (Acorn), and Running with Crayons (Alfred) don't know how to write software for a Mac. Sure! I'd buy the argument five or ten years ago. But times have changed.

The difference is, I've heard of them. I haven't heard of the people behind Knock. It's all just a matter of perception.
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