Apple is already at the forefront of the passkeys roll-out, integrating passkey generation and syncing to its iCloud Keychain platform. You’ve already been able to create login passkeys for a service directly on iPhones, but it didn’t work on iCloud or on your own Apple ID. There’s a fix coming, but for that, you’ll need a device running iOS 17, iPadOS 17, or macOS Sonoma.
In fact, once you upgrade, you won’t need to do much. Apple will assign a passkey to your Apple ID automatically. Just like a regular passkey, this will be stored on your iCloud Keychain account and synced across all your devices. It’ll work when you’re trying to log in to iCloud, or any account that’s linked to your Apple ID, including any “Sign In With Apple” options.
As conveyed by the screenshot below (courtesy of Twitter user @aaron613), you’ll be able to use passkeys via the sign-in button on the login page.
As of this morning, it looks like you can now use Passkeys to sign in to https://t.co/vugFzZAxv4, requires iOS 17 though. pic.twitter.com/WDJ83zx7TK
— Aaron (@aaronp613) June 20, 2023
If you’re wondering what the heck a passkey is: Passkeys are cryptographically generated keys, unique to the account and the device they are generated on. They’re supposed to be the replacement for passwords, as there’s nothing to remember from the user side — and the fact that they’re generated on the device means they’re not a huge risk of data leak or passkey misuse. You can learn a lot more in our detailed guide.
And if you’re using a service like iCloud Keychain, the generated passkey is automatically saved to your iCloud account with end-to-end encryption, and you can use the same passkey across all your Apple devices. If you’re using a Windows computer or an Android device, a simple QR scan from your iPhone will authenticate the passkey.
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