Morning all

One of the messages I seem to bang on about quite a lot is password security. i.e. Use different, hard-to-guess passwords for every service you use. Now this is fairly easy if you use a password manager (I strongly recommend 1Password) on your Mac or PC, but realistically I can understand why people are inclined to use the same password for some services if their primary “computer” is an iOS device – it’s time-consuming to dip in and out of 1Password to copy and paste passwords!

But that’s all about to change with iOS8.

One of the major changes to iOS8 is what Apple are calling extensibility. This allows app designers to create hooks into other apps, making the use and sharing of data between apps much easier. For example, as it stands right now, to get a password from 1Password into a login prompt in Safari, you have to open 1Password (password required), find the service you are logging in to, copy the password, switch back to Safari and paste the password in (I’m assuming you can remember the login name). In iOS8 however, 1Password have released a beta of their extension which allows you to use the fingerprint scanner to authenticate, via the share button in Safari, making the use of secure, unique passwords so much easier.

I did find a video of someone using this beta software, which you can see below, and I’m sure you will agree this is a much easier way of logging into things on the web.