iOS 19 Likely to Sync Captive Wi-Fi Data Between Devices

[MacRumors]

Apple is developing a new feature that will synchronize captive Wi-Fi portal login information across devices, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

The system will allow users to enter login details for captive Wi-Fi networks – commonly found in hotels, airports, and coffee shops – just once, then automatically sync that information across their iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices.

"When you go to a new hotel, office building or gym, you're often asked to fill out a web form on all your devices before you can access the internet," Gurman reports. "This new feature will let you enter that information on one device and have it synched to your other products."

This time-saving addition should eliminate the frustration of repeatedly logging into the same network portal across multiple Apple devices.

Apple is reportedly readying the feature in time for WWDC 2025, suggesting it will likely arrive with iOS 19, iPadOS 19, and macOS 16.

Article Link: iOS 19 Likely to Sync Captive Wi-Fi Data Between Devices

 

[bradman83]

I'm curious how this impacts paid captive wi-fi, specifically those found on aircraft. Currently if the airline charges for wi-fi you'd have to pay a fee for each device. Does this get around it? I would imagine paid wi-fi operators would be able to tell based on the device's MAC address or something similar.

 

[mxrider88]

Yeah. Then they will delay it until 19.4 and release a buggy mess.

Work on all the stuff nobody asked about but give us a dumber version Siri week by week. Way to go.

 

[211]

There is this issue I have had since the 1st iPhone that when you try to connect to a password protected WiFi and you choose to cancel it, it still links to the WiFi, but won’t work as I didn’t provide the password. I then have to go back to forget WiFi, otherwise it won’t disconnnect

 

[kiranmk2]

I'm curious how this impacts paid captive wi-fi, specifically those found on aircraft. Currently if the airline charges for wi-fi you'd have to pay a fee for each device. Does this get around it? I would imagine paid wi-fi operators would be able to tell based on the device's MAC address or something similar.

For your use case, specifically, it looks like Starlink will become the default inflight WiFi service as it is just so much faster than the incumbant systems, and I believe Starlink forbids airlines from charging customers for it.

 

[lellis2k]

Ah was hoping this would be something more universal to prevent having to enter info to every new captive wifi you turn up at. Syncing between devices is a nice addition, but not a big one imo

 

[ijordano]

You know what would be great? The option to dismiss the captive wifi screen beyond "choose other network" which takes you straight to settings, or "use without internet" which connects you to a useless wifi network.

 

[TechTexan]

Ah was hoping this would be something more universal to prevent having to enter info to every new captive wifi you turn up at. Syncing between devices is a nice addition, but not a big one imo

Same here, but at least it’s something

 

[zilchfox]

You know what would be great? The option to dismiss the captive wifi screen beyond "choose other network" which takes you straight to settings, or "use without internet" which connects you to a useless wifi network.

You can— swipe up on the home bar (similar to closing an app), and you will resume where you left off instead. On devices with a Home Button, just simply press it to dismiss.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

This feature only now?

 

[FloridaScrubJay]

I always wondered why this was never implemented. I travel a lot and this would be welcomed finally. On Delta flights if you are a SkyMiles member linking one device should link all finally.

 

[cicalinarrot]

Proprietary wifi log-in is still one of the tech-related experiences I hate the most, it makes me feel like it's 2008.
Hope this makes it a little less painful.

 

[PsykX]

Good... these captive Wi-Fi portals are seriously annoying.
They don't work well, they have lots of ads, they're slow, they don't always appear...
This is definitely an area of improvement. I even hope there's eventually a native, standardized popup. That would be a god-send.

 

[Len Banks]

How about they do something similar for all my Apple TVs! I get logged out of a streaming app sometimes and have to go through the whole login process using my phone or computer. I wish all the Apple TVs in my home were synched with login data so all the apps would just work.

 

[lkrupp]

Would any sane person actually use public WiFi when they know the guy sitting next to them could be sniffing their keystrokes and passwords, reading their email? I never use public WiFi.

 

[Antwan86]

That would be useful for the watch and HomePod.
Eg at the gym or an airbnb.

 

[jamezr]

Would any sane person actually use public WiFi when they know the guy sitting next to them could be sniffing their keystrokes and passwords, reading their email? I never use public WiFi.

my thoughts too. This seems like a huge security risk to me. I only want to connect to public WiFi when I explicitly choose to do so.

 

[nortonandreev]

I’ve had to do this quite a lot in the past month and was wondering if something like this would be possible. Would be nice to see it.

 

[thejsa]

WISPr was standardised to do this many years ago — maybe it’ll finally see its time come? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WISPr

 

[craig1410]

Would any sane person actually use public WiFi when they know the guy sitting next to them could be sniffing their keystrokes and passwords, reading their email? I never use public WiFi.

You can use public wi-fi safely as long as you use a reputable VPN provider to encapsulate all your traffic as it traverses the public network.

 

[geogecko]

Just use a travel router, problem solved, they are cheap, allow you to fill out the captive portal on your phone, and then use Wineguard or the like to VPN to your home router. I use a wired connection if I can find one in a hotel, otherwise repeater mode works just about as well.

 

[zach-coleman]

I really wish there was some equivalent of the MIT license (open source software) but for public wifi, where you agreed to the boilerplate “don’t do illegal things on our Wifi” etc one time during your first attempt to connect to one and it would tell each router you already agreed to those basic terms for all WiFi networks. Would take ages for everyone to update to compliant routers but would fix the majority of the problem eventually.

Would any sane person actually use public WiFi when they know the guy sitting next to them could be sniffing their keystrokes and passwords, reading their email? I never use public WiFi.

VPN advertisements have done irreparable damage to what people think is possible over public WiFi in the modern day. None of these things are occurring with current security. HTTPS is so universal some browsers will now complain if you go to a site that is HTTP only.

 

[kylelerner]

Hm, this is normally by MAC Address so I am curious how this will work. Maybe the device submitting the form will automatically submit the form multiple times with your other devices’ MAC addresses (Private or Rotating) by cloning them on submissions.

 

[maxfromdenmark]

I wish it would also work across iCloud family devices.

 

[BruiserB]

Hopefully this will allow my Apple Watch to join my company's captive WiFi. I recently discovered that I can manually join it separately on the watch, but it's quite cumbersome to type a 16+ character password on the watch. Before my company had the captive WiFi (and just had an open guest WiFi), it was so cool to get alerts and even calls on my watch throughout the building without having to have my phone with me.