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The Apple ID sign in is insane in the first place. Why does Apple want to feel so frickin special and require a working iPhone for 2FA and passkeys, instead of

The Apple ID sign in is insane in the first place. Why does Apple want to feel so frickin special and require a working iPhone for 2FA and passkeys, instead of adopting standards? One day the eu will yell at them to do things normally and then Cook will go on stage to showcase what an awesome idea they had that nobody thought of before: “standards!”. Wait no, that’s usb c. Side-rant over.

jacquesm 1y ago
I don't have an Apple ID and I don't have a Microsoft ID. I won't have either, ever. I do have a Google ID and I can't wait for the day that I can finally retire it. All of these feel like the exact opposite of what the internet should have been, this centralization and abuse of critical mass is a serious problem.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago
  > I don't have an Apple ID and I don't have a Microsoft ID. I won't have either, ever. I don't know whether I have a Microsoft account or not. I didn't want to have one, obviously. But at some point I wanted to use Visual Studio and setting that up required me to create a Microsoft account. I continued not to use that account as an account on my computer, because why on earth would I do that. So, other than using Visual Studio, that account never did anything at all, sort of like you'd expect from an account that you forced someone to create under duress. One day I opened Visual Studio and a popup message displayed, telling me that because of what appeared to be fraudulent behavior by my Microsoft account, it was being revoked or disabled or whatever. (But I was still free to continue using Visual Studio.) OK.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    They just can't help themselves. It's as if someone's career depends on the number of users in the system, no matter whether or not they actually provide value to the users by having them in the system. Everybody and their dog wants you to be part of their eco-system. The best way to get me to not use a service is to have an account requirement that does not provide any functionality that I could have had without that account. It is also why pianojacq.com does not have any accounts, there simply isn't anything that you could do with an account that you can not do without.
    - thewebguyd 1y ago
      > Everybody and their dog wants you to be part of their eco-system. And that's the core problem. We stopped making tech and started making walled-garden "ecosystems." Apple is the most egregious, but everyone else is doing it too. What ever happened to open standards, cross-platform, interoperability? I never wanted a world where I have to choose all Apple tech, or all Google tech, or All Microsoft, or whatever just to get devices and software that integrate and play nicely together. When I was younger I remember being relatively platform agnostic. I had windows and Linux PCs, they dual booted without Windows killing grub every update, I didn't need to have my kernel signed with Microsoft's key. I had a macbook, an Android phone, wired headphones. My music was local on a network share and I used it with local music players across all my computers. None of those ever pestered me for an account, or tried to push me to buy more of their "ecosystem," or sell me a subscription to use basic features. Now everything is a sales funnel. Every app or service wants your email, every device wants an account, everybody is always trying to upsell you on something. We stopped making great tech products a long time ago and are now just extracting rent. I used to be optimistic about tech. I dreamed of a world of openness and interoperability, not lock-in and ecosystems.
      - sfn42 1y ago
        The only problem here is apple. Just don't buy apple products and you're fine. You can have. A windows or Linux pc and use Google sheets or whatever. I don't know whether the office suite is available on Linux but you have options for creating files that are office compatible. The only problem here is apple, I don't think it seems fair to include MS and Google, they're much less walled than apple is. Maybe they could do better too, but apple is much worse.
        thewebguyd 1y ago
        Fair enough, Windows still plenty open (outside of the MS account requirement for home edition), but I think we can safely include Google now with the sideloading changes on Android, they clearly have seen Apple's rent revenue and want a slice of the pie.
  - ludicrousdispla 1y ago
    I refuse to update to windows 11 because it requires setting up a Microsoft account. So all new computers (and some of the old ones) in our family have had their disks wiped and Ubuntu installed instead. We started doing this even before the Cortana/AI bs.
    - toast0 1y ago
      There's usually a way to convince windows to let you use a local account. Less so for the Home versions, Pro lets you do it pretty easily though. But good on you for switching... windows seems hellbent on sliding into oblivion.
- crossroadsguy 1y ago
  Google a/c was the easiest to retire for me. Stopped using Android [0], Gmail - done! Apple ID, on the other hand - if you use an Apple device then a whole lot of (safety) features are literally tied to an Apple a/c and don't even exist without it. I can't remember I ever had a MSFT ID. I dream of a day when device makers are forced to expose APIs where one can add a device account provider a/c or device id provider a/c which offers various features like theft protection, remote lock et cetera or a self hosted solution. Yeah, that's just a dream. [0] I do use one for work/testing and there's a throwaway Google a/c added on that created using a disposable email from SimpleLogin.
speleding 1y ago
My elderly parents have managed to destroy more than one iPhone / Mac (dropped a glass of wine on the keyboard on the last one). Using the "Restore from iCloud" is a god send to get all their messages and settings back. So I'm willing to go through some pain / privacy invasion for that.
- scrollaway 1y ago
  There is nothing preventing storing standard 2FA secrets on iCloud. You shouldn’t blindly accept substandard behaviour because of imagined technical requirements.
- ykonstant 1y ago
  Kind of off topic, but is "spilled liquid on keyboard" still this unfathomable engineering barrier that nobody can break to make a more robust laptop for one of the most common causes of damage?
  - iamflimflam1 1y ago
    Electronics and liquids are just not a great combination. Unless of course you stick to pure alcohol or distilled water…
    - tim333 1y ago
      Yeah but there are solutions. After years of being vulnerable to water the iphones are now waterproof. Cars have had engine electronics in boxes with wax in for decades. The cheapest stuff you buy in supermarkets comes in waterproof packaging.
      - JimmyBiscuit 1y ago
        All the things you listed arent things you interact with by pressing on them thousands of times in a day. Its a hard problem to make a keyboard that feels nice, looks nice and is waterproof. Its even harder if you know that the payoff isnt that marketable, I dont think I have ever seen a mainstream laptop advertisment talking about that you can spill stuff on it. Phones barely have buttons or holes anymore and it took us quite a while for the flagship-phones to be water-resistant.
bootsmann 1y ago
> Why does Apple want to feel so frickin special and require a working iPhone for 2FA and passkeys, instead of adopting standards? Walled gardeners be gardening
- jowea 1y ago
  Nah gardening would be if they were improving the platform. They be walling.
  - soperj 1y ago
    I don't know. Some people just spray insecticide and herbicide everywhere.
astafrig 1y ago
> then Cook will go on stage to showcase what an awesome idea they had that nobody thought of before: “standards!”. Wait no, that’s usb c. That never happened.
- scrollaway 1y ago
  https://youtu.be/d9JblG0O3Io https://youtu.be/d9JblG0O3Io Timestamp 6min. Wasn’t Tim, I guess it’d have been too embarrassing…
  - astafrig 1y ago
    Glad to know I was correct. They didn’t claim it was new or “never thought of before” at all—they even specifically pointed out how they already did it on their other products. I’m pretty sure they almost spent more time talking about the colours of the phone.
joenot443 1y ago
> Why does Apple want to feel so frickin special and require a working iPhone for 2FA and passkeys, instead of adopting standards? Ever since the Great iCloud Hack of 2014, Apple dialed up their end user auth to the max. [1] It was after that hack when bad actors from around the world realized getting into someone's Apple account could be as lucrative (or more) than their bank or email, and so here we are today. I'm not sure what else Apple can do here. People have made it a habit to store their most sensitive and private secrets in iCloud, stuff which can't be refunded or bought back. I think having such an annoying, stringent, and walled-in auth system is probably the only way Apple PMs are able to move past the disaster of 2014. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/tim-cook-says-apple-to-add-security-alerts-for-icloud-users-1409880977 https://www.wsj.com/articles/tim-cook-says-apple-to-add-secu...
- notmyjob 1y ago
  >People have made it a habit to store their most sensitive and private secrets in iCloud Totally absurd to blame anyone but apple for that. Apple pushes features, like iCloud, so they can do show and tell every year and make their stock go up. More a stock go up business than anything else. Features, like iCloud, are the problem. People who like that stuff are also the loudest fanboys and often the least technologically literate too.
  - LPisGood 1y ago
    It may be absurd, but people would blame Apple if they kept sensitive data in iCloud and it was stolen. I’m not even sure if it’s absurd, frankly.
lachiflippi 1y ago
> Why does Apple want to feel so frickin special and require a working iPhone for 2FA and passkeys, instead of adopting standards? Mind elaborating on this? I used a Mac without an iPhone for years when the M1 came out. SMS 2FA, and then later enrolling two Yubikeys, worked just fine for 2FA, as did using the Mac itself as a passkey.
mingus88 1y ago
I believe the 2FA stuff became mandatory after all those celebrities with weak passwords had their nudes leaked https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_le... And Apple being Apple, they designed their own solution. I actually like having a Secure Enclave on my device with easy biometric authentication across all of my devices Calling for standards is a great thing usually but to be perfectly honest, the current ecosystem of FIDO, webauthn, TOTP, etc is a nightmare. I have three yubikeys and three or four protocols to manage on them. People won’t adopt that, but they will adopt Apple’s.
- gumby271 1y ago
  Really? I've never really had a problem adding TOTP codes to the password manager of my choice on the device of my choice. Apple's 2fa where they assume I have an iPhone just because I own a Mac or just because I want to log in to some Apple service has definitely given me trouble though. It often feels like an iPhone is an assumed accessory with Mac OS sometimes.
- Teever 1y ago
  Do you know if Apple opensourced or FRAND'd their alteratives in this area?

jacquesm 1y ago

I don't have an Apple ID and I don't have a Microsoft ID. I won't have either, ever. I do have a Google ID and I can't wait for the day that I can finally retire it. All of these feel like the exact opposite of what the internet should have been, this centralization and abuse of critical mass is a serious problem.

thaumasiotes 1y ago
> I don't have an Apple ID and I don't have a Microsoft ID. I won't have either, ever. I don't know whether I have a Microsoft account or not. I didn't want to have one, obviously. But at some point I wanted to use Visual Studio and setting that up required me to create a Microsoft account. I continued not to use that account as an account on my computer, because why on earth would I do that. So, other than using Visual Studio, that account never did anything at all, sort of like you'd expect from an account that you forced someone to create under duress. One day I opened Visual Studio and a popup message displayed, telling me that because of what appeared to be fraudulent behavior by my Microsoft account, it was being revoked or disabled or whatever. (But I was still free to continue using Visual Studio.) OK.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  They just can't help themselves. It's as if someone's career depends on the number of users in the system, no matter whether or not they actually provide value to the users by having them in the system. Everybody and their dog wants you to be part of their eco-system. The best way to get me to not use a service is to have an account requirement that does not provide any functionality that I could have had without that account. It is also why pianojacq.com does not have any accounts, there simply isn't anything that you could do with an account that you can not do without.
  - thewebguyd 1y ago
    > Everybody and their dog wants you to be part of their eco-system. And that's the core problem. We stopped making tech and started making walled-garden "ecosystems." Apple is the most egregious, but everyone else is doing it too. What ever happened to open standards, cross-platform, interoperability? I never wanted a world where I have to choose all Apple tech, or all Google tech, or All Microsoft, or whatever just to get devices and software that integrate and play nicely together. When I was younger I remember being relatively platform agnostic. I had windows and Linux PCs, they dual booted without Windows killing grub every update, I didn't need to have my kernel signed with Microsoft's key. I had a macbook, an Android phone, wired headphones. My music was local on a network share and I used it with local music players across all my computers. None of those ever pestered me for an account, or tried to push me to buy more of their "ecosystem," or sell me a subscription to use basic features. Now everything is a sales funnel. Every app or service wants your email, every device wants an account, everybody is always trying to upsell you on something. We stopped making great tech products a long time ago and are now just extracting rent. I used to be optimistic about tech. I dreamed of a world of openness and interoperability, not lock-in and ecosystems.
    - sfn42 1y ago
      The only problem here is apple. Just don't buy apple products and you're fine. You can have. A windows or Linux pc and use Google sheets or whatever. I don't know whether the office suite is available on Linux but you have options for creating files that are office compatible. The only problem here is apple, I don't think it seems fair to include MS and Google, they're much less walled than apple is. Maybe they could do better too, but apple is much worse.
      - thewebguyd 1y ago
        Fair enough, Windows still plenty open (outside of the MS account requirement for home edition), but I think we can safely include Google now with the sideloading changes on Android, they clearly have seen Apple's rent revenue and want a slice of the pie.
- ludicrousdispla 1y ago
  I refuse to update to windows 11 because it requires setting up a Microsoft account. So all new computers (and some of the old ones) in our family have had their disks wiped and Ubuntu installed instead. We started doing this even before the Cortana/AI bs.
  - toast0 1y ago
    There's usually a way to convince windows to let you use a local account. Less so for the Home versions, Pro lets you do it pretty easily though. But good on you for switching... windows seems hellbent on sliding into oblivion.
crossroadsguy 1y ago
Google a/c was the easiest to retire for me. Stopped using Android [0], Gmail - done! Apple ID, on the other hand - if you use an Apple device then a whole lot of (safety) features are literally tied to an Apple a/c and don't even exist without it. I can't remember I ever had a MSFT ID. I dream of a day when device makers are forced to expose APIs where one can add a device account provider a/c or device id provider a/c which offers various features like theft protection, remote lock et cetera or a self hosted solution. Yeah, that's just a dream. [0] I do use one for work/testing and there's a throwaway Google a/c added on that created using a disposable email from SimpleLogin.

speleding 1y ago

My elderly parents have managed to destroy more than one iPhone / Mac (dropped a glass of wine on the keyboard on the last one). Using the "Restore from iCloud" is a god send to get all their messages and settings back. So I'm willing to go through some pain / privacy invasion for that.

scrollaway 1y ago
There is nothing preventing storing standard 2FA secrets on iCloud. You shouldn’t blindly accept substandard behaviour because of imagined technical requirements.
ykonstant 1y ago
Kind of off topic, but is "spilled liquid on keyboard" still this unfathomable engineering barrier that nobody can break to make a more robust laptop for one of the most common causes of damage?
- iamflimflam1 1y ago
  Electronics and liquids are just not a great combination. Unless of course you stick to pure alcohol or distilled water…
  - tim333 1y ago
    Yeah but there are solutions. After years of being vulnerable to water the iphones are now waterproof. Cars have had engine electronics in boxes with wax in for decades. The cheapest stuff you buy in supermarkets comes in waterproof packaging.
    - JimmyBiscuit 1y ago
      All the things you listed arent things you interact with by pressing on them thousands of times in a day. Its a hard problem to make a keyboard that feels nice, looks nice and is waterproof. Its even harder if you know that the payoff isnt that marketable, I dont think I have ever seen a mainstream laptop advertisment talking about that you can spill stuff on it. Phones barely have buttons or holes anymore and it took us quite a while for the flagship-phones to be water-resistant.

bootsmann 1y ago

> Why does Apple want to feel so frickin special and require a working iPhone for 2FA and passkeys, instead of adopting standards? Walled gardeners be gardening

jowea 1y ago
Nah gardening would be if they were improving the platform. They be walling.
- soperj 1y ago
  I don't know. Some people just spray insecticide and herbicide everywhere.

astafrig 1y ago

> then Cook will go on stage to showcase what an awesome idea they had that nobody thought of before: “standards!”. Wait no, that’s usb c. That never happened.

scrollaway 1y ago
https://youtu.be/d9JblG0O3Io https://youtu.be/d9JblG0O3Io Timestamp 6min. Wasn’t Tim, I guess it’d have been too embarrassing…
- astafrig 1y ago
  Glad to know I was correct. They didn’t claim it was new or “never thought of before” at all—they even specifically pointed out how they already did it on their other products. I’m pretty sure they almost spent more time talking about the colours of the phone.

joenot443 1y ago

> Why does Apple want to feel so frickin special and require a working iPhone for 2FA and passkeys, instead of adopting standards? Ever since the Great iCloud Hack of 2014, Apple dialed up their end user auth to the max. [1] It was after that hack when bad actors from around the world realized getting into someone's Apple account could be as lucrative (or more) than their bank or email, and so here we are today. I'm not sure what else Apple can do here. People have made it a habit to store their most sensitive and private secrets in iCloud, stuff which can't be refunded or bought back. I think having such an annoying, stringent, and walled-in auth system is probably the only way Apple PMs are able to move past the disaster of 2014. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/tim-cook-says-apple-to-add-security-alerts-for-icloud-users-1409880977 https://www.wsj.com/articles/tim-cook-says-apple-to-add-secu...

notmyjob 1y ago
>People have made it a habit to store their most sensitive and private secrets in iCloud Totally absurd to blame anyone but apple for that. Apple pushes features, like iCloud, so they can do show and tell every year and make their stock go up. More a stock go up business than anything else. Features, like iCloud, are the problem. People who like that stuff are also the loudest fanboys and often the least technologically literate too.
- LPisGood 1y ago
  It may be absurd, but people would blame Apple if they kept sensitive data in iCloud and it was stolen. I’m not even sure if it’s absurd, frankly.

lachiflippi 1y ago

> Why does Apple want to feel so frickin special and require a working iPhone for 2FA and passkeys, instead of adopting standards? Mind elaborating on this? I used a Mac without an iPhone for years when the M1 came out. SMS 2FA, and then later enrolling two Yubikeys, worked just fine for 2FA, as did using the Mac itself as a passkey.

mingus88 1y ago

I believe the 2FA stuff became mandatory after all those celebrities with weak passwords had their nudes leaked https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_leak https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_celebrity_nude_photo_le... And Apple being Apple, they designed their own solution. I actually like having a Secure Enclave on my device with easy biometric authentication across all of my devices Calling for standards is a great thing usually but to be perfectly honest, the current ecosystem of FIDO, webauthn, TOTP, etc is a nightmare. I have three yubikeys and three or four protocols to manage on them. People won’t adopt that, but they will adopt Apple’s.

gumby271 1y ago
Really? I've never really had a problem adding TOTP codes to the password manager of my choice on the device of my choice. Apple's 2fa where they assume I have an iPhone just because I own a Mac or just because I want to log in to some Apple service has definitely given me trouble though. It often feels like an iPhone is an assumed accessory with Mac OS sometimes.
Teever 1y ago
Do you know if Apple opensourced or FRAND'd their alteratives in this area?