Apple’s new Passwords app in iOS 18 aims to provide a secure, convenient location for saving all of your important logins and passwords. There’s one key feature, however, that could eventually make the app largely obsolete: automatic passkey upgrades.
Passkeys are the future of passwords
Passkeys are Apple’s big bet on the future evolution of passwords. Essentially, passkeys are an alternative to passwords—but currently they’re only available with a limited number of websites and apps.
Where supported, a passkey is a unique login that doesn’t require you to create a username and password. Instead, it utilizes your Apple device’s Face ID or Touch ID biometric authentication to create your account.
Essentially, passkeys eliminate the need for creating or remembering different logins for different sites—similar to the existing ‘Sign in with Apple’ system that many sites support.
Passkeys are also more secure than passwords. Since biometric data is stored locally on your device, it isn’t vulnerable to data breaches, leaks, hacks, or phishing attempts the way that passwords are.
Here’s how the new Passwords app in iOS 18 is set up to fully embrace passkeys.
Automatic passkey upgrades with the Passwords app
One of the best features of the Passwords app is something that will eventually make you depend on the app far less.
Where passkeys are supported by a given site or app, the Passwords app can automatically detect that and upgrade your existing login info into a passkey.
Over time, this means that your collection of passwords will become gradually replaced by passkeys.
Importantly, your saved passwords won’t actually be removed from the Passwords app. All of your data will remain in-tact unless you manually delete it.
But in due time, with more and more sites supporting passkeys, your need to use those stored passwords should reduce greatly.
Passkey upgrades happen automatically, without you needing to do anything. But if you don’t want to have your logins upgraded to passkeys, you can disable the feature by visiting Settings ⇾ Apps ⇾ Passwords and toggling off the ‘Allow Automatic Passkey Upgrades’ setting.
Future proofing the Passwords app
Automatic passkey upgrades are a fantastic feature, and one that’s bound to provide incrementally more value over time as passkeys become more widespread on the web.
The feature also serves to head off any potential confusion that could be wrought by new passkey accounts being created on sites where you already have a password-based accounts. Without this feature, users could unknowingly find themselves with multiple accounts for various sites—but thanks to automatic upgrades, that should happen far less often.
What do you think of this new feature? Will you leave it enabled? Let us know in the comments.
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