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Apple Working on OS X 10.12 Feature Allowing Macs to Be Unlocked via iPhone's Touch ID

Great. Siri and TouchID. That's what people are excited for? The iOSification of OS X is still going well I see. I can't wait for the keynote. "Now thanks to the Siri desktop integration, you can ask your mac to tell your watch to tell your iPhone to share your awesome weekend photos with all your friends and their families. Yay!"

Can we expect more than this bullsh!t from a desktop OS, PLEASE? I use my Macs (which are suprisingly not laptops! :eek:) for composing music, audio editing, graphic design, video editing. I couldn't care less what Siri can "help me with" on my computer.
 
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theluggage said:
That makes a lot of assumptions about the circumstances under which you might lose your phone: i.e. that you instantly know its gone and are in a position to take immediate action. I.e. you're pretty much assuming that you've been mugged but not injured and ignored every other scenario.
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I think if I'm dying, injured, incapacitated, kidnapped, etc., I have bigger concerns than the personal data on my device. I can't expect Apple to be my guardian angel.
 
Morpheo said:
Great. Siri and TouchID. That's what people are excited for? The iOSification of OS X is still going well I see. I can't wait for the keynote. "Now thanks to the Siri desktop integration, you can ask your mac to tell your watch to tell your iPhone to share your awesome weekend photos with all your friends and their families. Yay!"

Can we expect more than this bullsh!t from a desktop OS, PLEASE? I use my Macs (which are suprisingly not laptops! :eek:) for composing music, audio editing, graphic design, video editing. I couldn't care less what Siri can "help me with" on my computer.
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I take it you've never once watched a WWDC keynote? Consumer focused features get the Tech News headlines....because that's what drives headlines.

Get ready for thousands of new APIs and developer features....when they are announced at the keynote. Why in the world do you think anyone would be excited about seeing headlines of new features in CoreAudio or some one developer feature?
 
NT1440 said:
I take it you've never once watched a WWDC keynote? Consumer focused features get the Tech News headlines....because that's what drives headlines.
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Yes I watch them and yes I know. I guess the sarcasm in my post wasn't that obvious - however I'm getting a bit tired be of all this "sharing", "social" and cloud stuff in OS X. Regardless, I'm eager to see what's in store for 10.12.
 
Morpheo said:
Yes I watch them and yes I know. I guess the sarcasm in my post wasn't that obvious - however I'm getting a bit tired be of all this "sharing", "social" and cloud stuff in OS X. Regardless, I'm eager to see what's in store for 10.12.
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On that, we're in complete agreement. I really don't use social media at all, but I understand the craze and why Apple and Google are compelled to integrate as tightly as possible.
 
Muscle Master said:
This is dumb as hell... Put a Touch ID sensor on one of the keys and be done with it
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Exactly. This falls into the "things the world doesn't need" category. Besides that it is a very stupid concept in the first place - and one that again demonstrates they still mistake a username (because THAT is all that a fingerprint really is) for a password or an otherwise legitimate unlock key.

It would be a much better idea if they finally fixed their completely broken USB 3 stack in OS X. The last technically stable version of OS X was Mountain Lion, all releases after that were buggy like hell. They have a lot of homework to do.

But, well. We all know that it won't ever happen. Eye candy and useless gimmicks sell software, bugfixes don't.
 
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Winni said:
It would be a much better idea if they finally fixed their completely broken USB 3 stack in OS X. .
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Can you elaborate? I move terabytes of data over USB each week on dozens of machines, haven't noticed an issue (though I vastly prefer using thunderbolt when I can).
 
American Hero said:
Apple Music has been a failure. In fact, every service Apple has come out with or tweaked since Jobs passed away has been a failure, between iTunes, Apple Music, iCloud, and more.
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Not near as a failure as Mobile Me, that was launched under Steve Jobs.
 
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Morpheo said:
Great. Siri and TouchID. That's what people are excited for? The iOSification of OS X is still going well I see. I can't wait for the keynote. "Now thanks to the Siri desktop integration, you can ask your mac to tell your watch to tell your iPhone to share your awesome weekend photos with all your friends and their families. Yay!"

Can we expect more than this bullsh!t from a desktop OS, PLEASE? I use my Macs (which are suprisingly not laptops! :eek:) for composing music, audio editing, graphic design, video editing. I couldn't care less what Siri can "help me with" on my computer.
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And surprise surprise, there are people like myself who own an iMac but don't use it for the stuff that you do.

It's always the little things which make using a desktop less frictionless (and why I actually prefer a tablet these days).

I used Mac ID app some time back and while I felt it was a cool concept, as pointed out earlier, it was let down by unreliable bluetooth. If Apple can work around these issues and make the feature more intuitive and reliable, I think it will be a neat little feature which saves me the trouble of having to lock and unlock my Macbook at work.
 
Winni said:
Exactly. This falls into the "things the world doesn't need" category. Besides that it is a very stupid concept in the first place - and one that again demonstrates they still mistake a username (because THAT is all that a fingerprint really is) for a password or an otherwise legitimate unlock key.
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Well for starters, if they did implement a hardware only solution in all next generation Macs, that would leave out all the existing Macs, now wouldn't it.

And while it is in fact a substitute for a password, it is a password that allows the Mac to function with Pay, which while not only a convenient and secure way to pay for products online, it's also a revenue generating stream Apple would want as many users as possible to be able to implement.

So I completely reject your position and disagree completely. This is an excellent feature that's going to benefit a great many people who use their Macs for online purchasing, without requiring them to buy new Macs.
 
Ballis said:
Picking up my phone to unlock my mac doesn't make anything easier. Adding a sensor to the keyboard will.
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This isn't about what makes sense, or improves productivity.

This is about Apple's clever and incessant obsession to keep people locked into the Apple ecosystem.

With a massive war chest of cash, Apple is free to focus on influence and power over their user base.
 
cmChimera said:
I think if I'm dying, injured, incapacitated, kidnapped, etc., I have bigger concerns than the personal data on my device. I can't expect Apple to be my guardian angel.
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While you are lying in your hospital bed, its nice to think that your mugger isn't having fun with your Apple Pay account, sending obscene messages to your contact list. Or that your loved one isn't looking through your special photo album*...

Then maybe you left your phone in a bar and didn't realise until the next morning because you were really tired; or forgot to pick it up after security at the airport and only found out at 30000 feet; or you left your phone at home and got burgled; or when you couldn't find it, you were positive it was in your other jacket at home and didn't bother to wipe it, or one of a dozen other scenarios which, taken together, are probably more likely than someone stealing it while you watch.

( *you know, the one that shows you eating a Big Mac after you assured her that you'd gone vegan. What did you think I meant? :) )
 
This would actually be a welcome addition. I could see building it into one of the keys, but having it on the iPhone would be cool too. I have my MacBook Pro in a dock on my desk, and having it on a key would be difficult as I'd have to remove it from the dock and open it up each time. Having it on the phone would be easy, as I've got my phone on my desk most of the time anyway.
 
theluggage said:
OK, so I did what I should have done to start with and googled:

http://www.cnet.com/news/touch-id-hack-verified-as-legit/
http://www.zdnet.com/article/samsun...-unlocked-with-an-inkjet-printed-fingerprint/

The first one is iPhone, the second is Samsung (but I assume they'd claim that they're using sophisticated "biometric technology" too). I suspect that the main barrier to this being practical is the small number of failures needed before iOS starts insisting on the passcode.
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Are we really using a controlled test under a controlled set of circumstances as any kind of evidence? It's like the demonstrations for Google Home and Viv..."check out how awesome our AI is! But only we can ask the questions."

By the way the "main barrier" in this test is actually obtaining a fake fingerprint from a stranger. Good luck with that.
 
PC have had fingerprint unlock for over a decade. Worthless feature. Most corporations policy the thing out and disable the hardware.

I'm sure now that Apple has "innovated" the feature, it will be the best thing since sliced bread.
 
garirry said:
Honestly, I hope this is temporary and there will be a fingerprint sensor built into Macs. Not everyone has iPhones, and most importantly, I'm not about to pull out my phone to unlock it, open an app, then fingerprint it again. Might as well enter my 6-digit password because that's about as secure my computer needs to be since nobody even has access to it.
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Precisely. I bought MacID which does exactly this - locks your Mac when you and your iPhone walk away and pops up up on the notification screen when so you can TouchID when you return.

You don't need to open an app and it also has a Apple Watch extension.

However:
  • Sometimes I leave my phone on my desk when I carry my laptop to a meeting room.
  • I work from home a lot and don't wear my AWatch and sometimes my phone sits in its charger in the kitchen while I am in my office.
Ergo, I need TouchID on my MacBook, not an external device.
 
theluggage said:
While you are lying in your hospital bed, its nice to think that your mugger isn't having fun with your Apple Pay account, sending obscene messages to your contact list. Or that your loved one isn't looking through your special photo album*...
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Am I in a coma? Because anything less, and I can remotely wipe my device or put it in lost mode. Also, I find the likelihood of an average street mugger having the sophistication of lifting my finger print and creating a duplicate pretty unlikely in the first place.

theluggage said:
Then maybe you left your phone in a bar and didn't realise until the next morning because you were really tired
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Nope. Will never happen. I'm pretty attached to my phone.
; or forgot to pick it up after security at the airport and only found out at 30000 feet; or you left your phone at home and got burgled; or when you couldn't find it, you were positive it was in your other jacket at home and didn't bother to wipe it, or one of a dozen other scenarios which, taken together, are probably more likely than someone stealing it while you watch.
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None of these are very likely in my situation as I use my phone a lot, I have an Apple Watch, and I play music through it in my car. I would have to have every intention of leaving my phone behind if it did. So let's just say I did. I intentionally left the device on a coffee table naively thinking no one would steal it, but it did. I'd go home, and remotely brick the phone. Long before anyone could make a fingerprint copy.[/QUOTE]


theluggage said:
( *you know, the one that shows you eating a Big Mac after you assured her that you'd gone vegan. What did you think I meant? :) )
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lol haha
 
Would be great - if they actually made Touch ID work properly.

I can forgive it occasionally not recognising your finger (e.g. if it is wet). But it's far worse that half the time I go to unlock my iPhone / iPad, it complains that I need to enter the PIN to enable Touch ID.

We were sold Touch ID as being a more secure means of login. So why doesn't the system actually rely on it more - or at least make it optional as to whether we want to reconfirm our PIN / passwords every couple of days?
 
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