11 ms·
Tap your iPhone to unlock your Mac
- hornbaker 13y agoNeat product. FYI, on your home page, I get the background image, then "Watch This" > (I click) > "Watch This" goes away, but nothing happens. And content below the fold is not visible or hinted at. (Mac OS X 10.7.5, FF 25)
- acdha 13y agoThey broke the mime types for the video files - the Firefox console shows how it's rejecting each <source> option.
- dntrkv 13y agoI don't really care for the product, but that is a great video. Love the music selection, the editing, wording, concept, everything really. Great execution.
- gfunk911 13y agoThis seems insecure. If I leave my phone by my computer, or if my bag gets stolen with my phone and computer in it, I'm in trouble. That said, it's pretty cool, and I like the website design.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- guptaneil 13y agoYou could use iCloud to remotely wipe your phone if that happens.
- alimbada 13y agoHow do you do that before the thief is able to get into your Mac and steal all your data when you've just lost all your devices?
- dylan604 13y agoThis assumes the thief is techy enough to know that Knock To Unlock is installed, and then know how to use it. Granted, it's not a great situation to be in having your stuff stolen, but thieves doing rip-n-runs aren't typically high tech users.
- dmak 13y agoInstall prey project. I create a guest account on my Mac so if I lose it, people will actually try to use it and connect it to WiFi.
- alimbada 13y agoThey won't need the guest account with this product.
- iamben 13y agoYou use the guest account as a honeypot so they open the Mac and use it for long enough (without wiping it) for you to get a wifi connection and can get the location with Prey :-)
- iamben 13y agoIf you're using Filevault for full disk encryption you can't have Prey installed and use it on an open guest account. You can have a guest account and use the iCloud 'Find My Mac' though. But that's exactly what I did on my last Mac (which wasn't using Filevault).
- kronholm 13y agoI do see your point, but wouldn't dropping your car keys also allow someone to steal your car?
- gcb0 13y agothe change of you having your car keys and your car in your backpack at the same time is much, much lower.
- monkeynotes 13y agoBut having a car stolen is way less of a problem than all your personal data being stolen. If my car is stolen because someone stole my bag with the keys in it then all I lose is my insured car. If my laptop is stolen with the 'keys' to the laptop also in the bag, my life could become very difficult very quickly taking me years to recover from. I think the point is you don't want to have the same paradigm as car + keys when it comes to your private information.
- hartator 13y agoDo you use full disk encryption? A lot people don't and it's easy to get your data when you got logged in as another user.
- monkeynotes 13y agoI use FileVault built into OSX.
- frankus 13y agoThat's a totally valid point. My guess it that they assumed most users would keep their phone in a pocket (since it's easier to tap than if it's buried in a bag). In any case it's a big upgrade from people who leave their computer unlocked all day. I'd love to see them add automatic proximity-based locking.
- pplante 13y agothis page breaks my browsers back button on osx.8 chrome 30.0.1599.101. no android app?
- joshdance 13y agoThis seems like magic. What method does it use to unlock your Mac with no password?
- joshstrange 13y agoIt doesn't actually unlock your machine. If you lock your computer it will not work. What it does is put up a page that looks nearly identical to the login page with small changes. It's a cool app (I tried it) but I'm disappointed that I can't find a way to toggle the lock via Alfred/Keyboard shortcut. I can get in the habit of hitting a key combination/alfred command when I get up but having to click the icon in the menu bar will get annoying.
- highace 13y agoNow that's a massive dealbreaker. That should be made more obvious.
- lstamour 13y agoIndeed. I'm thinking this is less and less secure with every word I hear about it. Here I was imagining it used overlay effects from a system process and some kind of Kerberos certificates or other mechanism to convince the computer to login for real. A fake password screen... sigh. Sounds like the next virus.
- aroman 13y agoMy thoughts exactly. Frankly I assumed the very reason this was on the front page was because they weren't just doing a fullscreen app. This is a gimmick, as far as I'm concerned.
- joshstrange 13y agoI completely agree, I'm actually really annoyed because I paid $4 for something that I wouldn't have paid $0.99 for if I knew this is what they were doing. Now $4 isn't going to break the bank but still I thinks it's misleading not to point that out.
- pritambaral 13y agoReminds me of BlueProximity. Unrelated: Too bad my neither my 3 year old laptop nor my one year old Chinese phone support bluetooth 4.0, I'll just have to waste a lot of battery if I use BlueProximity. Wait a sec, I can have a bluetooth toggle widget on my screen, how about that!
- rwl4 13y agoBrilliant video! The app looks really interesting but like others I'm a little concerned about the security of something like this...
- ajanuary 13y agoIf iphone is a part of your product it might be a good idea to make your website work well on mobile safari on iphone.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- lucaspiller 13y agoIf when browsing on my phone I come across your website, and it doesn't work on there (i.e. it is completely unusable), I'm not going to come back and view it when I'm at my desk. (This site seems to work ok on my iPhone 4 though)
- codezero 13y agoThis is pretty clever, but is this much better than the existing Bluetooth proximity unlock utilities? The iPhone app that this pairs with costs $3.99 by the way. If you use Mac OS, Proximity is similar to BlueProximity, there are probably other solutions that don't require an iOS app and accomplish the same thing without the magical novelty, all the same, I think it's neat and if the app weren't $4 I would try it out.
- sitharus 13y agoFunnily enough MacOS itself used to have bluetooth proximity unlock built in, in 2005. It also could receive and send SMS on the machine and pause/resume music on phone call.
- colmvp 13y agoI think you underestimate how much delight it gives people. Search on Twitter and behold how many people are blown away by this 'magic.' Not to mention I wouldn't be surprised if they extended their app to work with other devices.
- mistercow 13y agoI suspect that this kind of delight, even though it becomes routine, actually enhances user experience in the long run. For example, I have compiz set to use the "Burn" effect when closing windows. This is delightful and unobtrusive, and completely pointless. But man is it a stress reliever when I decide to close all of my windows in frustration.
- codezero 13y agoThis is a good observation. You're probably right. Routine and habit and the actual experience of those routines and habits do have intrinsic value in the way you go about executing them :)
- octernion 13y agoJust tried it out - works as advertised! Doesn't work if you have it in screensaver mode and locked - you need to have the login screen up. Still very neat.
- zacharyozer 13y agoDoes it log you out when you walk away?
- pritambaral 13y agoBlueProximity does. It's a Linux tool, Mac OS X support is pending.
- highace 13y agoI think that would be the real winner - locks when you walk away, unlocks when you return. So simple I'm surprised it doesn't already exist.
- joshstrange 13y agoIt does but most of the implementations I have tried (Including multiple PAID ones in the app store) don't work well at all. I would settle for locking when I walk away then tap to unlock when I get back.
- gonzo 13y agoOr that Apple hasn't built it into iOS and OS X by now.
- lstamour 13y agoThis. At this rate, Microsoft will do it first to sell more phones.
- oilytheotter 13y agoThis looks really cool, but it's pretty annoying that you allowed me to download and install on my Mac without telling me the iPhone app costs $3.99. In fact, I can't find anything on the website that says this thing does or does not cost money. Maybe you are hoping that people will assume it's free, download from the website, and then buy it on the app store because they already got that far. If so, it seems a bit dishonest.
- joshstrange 13y agoThis reminds me of a comment I made a week or two ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6540827 I made a similar comment about hiding the price on your launch page and got a response from the creator who was very helpful.
- king_magic 13y agoI find this... useful. But I'm not sure why. I spent the $3.99, and it sort of feels like a novelty app... but I can see myself actually using it for it's intended purpose, so.. is it really a novelty at that point? I don't know, but I like how well it works.
- Hilyin 13y agoDoes the knock app have to be open to unlock your computer?
- king_magic 13y agoNope - a push notification appears on your lock screen - just tap your phone at that point, and voila, you're unlocked. It's pretty slick.
- cloudwalking 13y agoHow does this not drain the iPhone battery?
- lstamour 13y agoBluetooth Low Energy. Unlike old bluetooth, this new service shuts down all the time to save power. In fact, apple recommends geofencing any bluetooth beacons you know will stay put, so it only starts scanning for nearby devices over bluetooth once you're within a certain radius. In this case, the app only looks for devices when you launch the app, though if you were willing to put up with a delay, you could do so on-knock. Haven't looked at the app yet. One more alternative: it could send the message and have your mac constantly looking for messages when locked. Third alternative, it pairs in the background and only once iOS notices the new device does it start actively opening communication channels. Apparently connect times are a few ms? http://www.connectblue.com/technologies/bluetooth-low-energy-technology/ http://www.connectblue.com/technologies/bluetooth-low-energy...
- cloudwalking 13y agoBut the app has to be running in memory AND watching the accelerator AT ALL TIMES. How does that not drain the phone battery?
- runjake 13y ago> How does this not drain the iPhone battery? This is answered right on the linked webpage: Bluetooth Low Energy.
- cloudwalking 13y agoBut the app has to be running in memory AND watching the accelerator AT ALL TIMES.
- marcelftw 13y agoThe iPhone 5S M7 coprocessor can be used all the time in background without draining the battery. [quote] The new M7 coprocessor is like a sidekick to the A7 chip. It’s designed specifically to measure motion data from the accelerometer, gyroscope, and compass — a task that would normally fall to the A7 chip. But M7 is much more efficient at it. Now fitness apps that track physical activity can access that data from the M7 coprocessor without constantly engaging the A7 chip. So they require less battery power. M7 knows when you’re walking, running, or even driving. For example, Maps switches from driving to walking turn-by-turn navigation if, say, you park and continue on foot. And if your phone hasn’t moved for a while, like when you’re asleep, M7 reduces network pinging to spare your battery. [/quote]
- pistle 13y agoShave. All of you with beards. Shave. For the love of all things holy, after the BoSox - it's jumped the shark... shave. As for the app, etc. I'd like to see this grow into some multi-part thing that could optionally include voice, fingerprint, code, etc.
- temuze 13y agoCome on, HN. Talk about the product, not about the dude's beard. What is this, middle school?
- pearjuice 13y ago>rolled up skinny jeans >hipster beard >authentic, vintage old storage space >edgy minimalism I am not buying it.
- smokinjoe 13y agoWhat do any of those have to do with the actual product?
- jcutrell 13y agoLiterally nothing. Which is sad. The point of these things was most likely a marketing strategy, and one that will likely be effective. I bought it. Not because of the jeans. Not because of the vintage storage space. Because it's a good product. I wouldn't have bought it if there wasn't a decent presentation of the functionality. And that is there.
- coherentpony 13y agoThis is exactly DH0 [1]. I will therefore take the high ground and respond with DH1, "Of course you would say that, you're an anonymous internet troll. Crawl back into your cave." [1]: http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- dannowatts 13y agothank goodness you don't have to! sheesh… it's just a cool, simple video introducing a product. way to tear it apart.
- ctdonath 13y ago> practical minimalism > slightly goofy credibility-straining setup > tension-relieving drop-dead-simple interface I'd have bought it already if not for my MacBookPro not supporting "low power bluetooth". The sales pitch admittedly has nothing to do with the technology - yet that's practically the point! There's no specs to sell, no user interface to demo beyond a "knock knock" so simple you don't even have to take the phone out of your pocket. There's almost nothing to sell, yet what there is has value ($4, ok); how do you sell that? A just-a-guy in casual attire in a simple & slightly non-sequitur space works just fine. Simple product, presumably easy development, first-mover advantage (this thing will have a thousand duplicates overnight), near-zero ad production cost. As for complaints about security: this is like the iOS fingerprint reader...it's not for serious security against serious attackers, it's about just locking your front door while making it easy for you to get in.
- lifeformed 13y agoIf your page scrolls, you should have a scroll bar.
- pedalpete 13y agoScroll bars can look ugly, but at the least they should have a graphical representation that the page is scrollable. I also completely missed the rest of the website.
- serf 13y agoI legitimately missed the rest of the page and dismissed it as totally broken until I read this comment. Hopefully that emphasizes how right lifeformed is.
- branksy 13y agoDoes it scroll? It doesn't do anything for me (Opera), so I guess everything's broken.
- oneeyedpigeon 13y agoIntroducing a javascript requirement to scroll the page?! That's just plain rude.
- jjcm 13y ago"If your page scrolls, you should have some indication that your page scrolls." That's my approach. I don't think scrollbars are entirely necessary (and in a slide-to-slide webpage like this, having a scrollbar wouldn't really work since it'd break the UI), but having some indicator that you can scroll is necessary. It doesn't necessarily have to be a scrollbar though. Having content peeking out from beneath the fold is often enough to let the user know, "Hey! There's stuff down here! Scroll and check it out!"
- toypaj 13y agoHave purchased but cannot do anything, iPhone is waiting for Macbook and Macbook is waiting for iPhone, cycling bluetooth doesn't help (iPhone 5 and Macbook Air 2012) hmmm
- songzme 13y agoSame with mine. I have a macbook pro retina
- landakram 13y agoI dropped the $3.99 on the iOS app only to find that the Mac app wasn't compatible with my computer. Looks cool, but I was pretty disappointed that I paid money and it didn't work with no warning.
- vegashacker 13y agoYou can get your money refunded by contacting Apple. http://www.labnol.org/software/itunes-app-store-refunds/ http://www.labnol.org/software/itunes-app-store-refunds/
- alex_doom 13y agoIt's pretty clear in the App Store screen shots. I'm disappointed my 2011 MacBook can't use it :/
- holyjaw 13y agoYou can request a refund through Knock. I saw a link on their twitter IIRC. @knocktounlock
- Cenk 13y agoThat video is so fucking pretentious I could puke into my mouth out of disgust.
- Void_ 13y agoUhh, because other ads are completely honest and show perfectly real situations?
- oakwhiz 13y agoMore apps and devices seem to be using wireless proximity as some kind of authenticator, along with the assumption that a specific received signal strength confirms the user's intent to perform some action. However, such systems seem to be quite prone to a simple attack consisting of a battery-powered bidirectional amplifier connected a pair of highly directional antennas. Simply point one antenna toward the user's phone and the other antenna toward the user's computer, and you can fool the computer into thinking the user's phone is closer than it really is.
- lstamour 13y agoThe trick is in opening the app and knocking. The knock releases the advertisement. Similarly, in other use cases, geofencing from the phone means the phone has to think it's nearby to release the signal. Not saying it can't happen, but that's a lot of work. Easier to just hack the device, prompt the user with a fake pin-pad or login screen, or do social engineering and/or gain physical access. By the way, this attack is much more successful in reverse, for listening to and replaying keycard transactions. I was shocked to discover how little materials would be needed to make a decent amplified antenna.
- CGamesPlay 13y ago+ Excellent website + Really well thought-out interactions (noticing when I download, auto installing to /Applications) + Plain-English ToS under creative commons. - An unsigned latest.zip for downloading, at least use a dmg so you can sign and have more control over the presentation - Extremely difficult to find Knock on the app store. The app could open a web page or itunes, right now I'm left searching and wading through knock-knock joke apps. - Making me run software before telling me the price of the software All in all, you're doing great with presentation, but it has a few minuses. I can't use the software because I don't have an iPhone now, so this is where my review ends.
- mikeash 13y agoI disagree on the zip. dmg used to be the preferred format for reasons I never entirely fully understood, but that ship has sailed, and I think for the better. Zip is much more convenient. You can, of course, sign the app within the zip.
- CGamesPlay 13y agoYou can sign the app within the zip, true. The advantage of using a dmg is to control the presentation, which seems like a strong desire for this particular product. Downloading a file named "latest.zip" that had an unsigned binary in it was by far the worst part of the excellently designed experience of installing the software. Apparently the iTunes link thing is a bug https://twitter.com/jschloss/status/397783949746769921 https://twitter.com/jschloss/status/397783949746769921
- pornel 13y agoPlease, don't use DMG. Just .app in a plain .zip please. The nifty "presentation" adds a several needless steps and pitfalls to running an application: • Mounting and verification of DMG is slow (Zip CRC and Developer ID signatures give you verification too). • "Nothing happens" after clicking DMG — user has to find DMG mount on a cluttered desktop. • Clicking app icon in the DMG window is tempting, but generally it's a no-no (some apps don't mind, but some ask to be moved to Applications, and some throw "error -13 read only volume" kind of errors). • User is expected to copy the app to Applications folder, with instructions given in form of non-localizable non-accessible text-in-image, and it's trickier when sidebar with shortcut to Applications folder is hidden (and remember "Applications" folder name is localized and sounds nothing like it in many languages). • User has to unmount and delete the DMG, but that gives non-obvious behavior when the app is running off the DMG. • It gets super confusing when user has pinned app in the Dock while it was running off the DMG
- Tarang 13y agoI like this! Btw some of us have slow internet connections. The video was buffering and stuff I couldn't watch it without manually loading it up separately. I can't get it to work? Are there minimum requirements for the mac end? I'm using the last 17" mac they made.
- karzeem 13y agoThe negativity in this thread is a perfect exemplar of the say-anything-critical-to-look-smart, "No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.", poisonous middlebrow dismissal that pg complains about. This is an amazingly light convenience, with really solid, streamlined execution. People, it's ok to think something is good.
- codex 13y agoI like your point and it is a valid critique of HN commenting. Many dismissals are perfunctory and incorrect. All the same, though, it is expected that almost all new startups will fail and most products will not be "the best" or even original. That's the nature of competition; only the top products get any traction at all. Given that, I would expect critiques of most new ventures.
- Segmentation 13y agoUgh. Just people you disagree with someone doesn't make them negative. It's critique. HN is a place of dissenting opinions. It's ok to have an opinion different than yours.
- sbuk 13y agoThe "Ugh", that's what the GP is talking about. A number of the posts come across as spiteful, which is not objective and as such, has no place here. In fact objective criticism is something that developers aren't good at at all, but such an important engineering skill. Speak to designers and learn how to do it. You'll be a better engineer as a result. Edited for clarity.
- jamesbritt 13y agoIt's a tough call sometimes. Or it feels like it. I didn't care for the site. Took too long to show what it was about so I closed the tab. Just a bit too cute for my taste. I was going to post a comment about it, mainly as a data point, in case such things matter to the site owner. OTOH I have on iPhone and I don't have a Mac I use often enough to care about this sort of product anyway; it's in perpetual sleep mode 99% of the time. I'm not the target audience. Does mentioning my dislike for the site make me negative? Is it to the long-term good that people feel reluctant to offer criticism? I do get the point about "Knock stuff to show your IQ"; it's unpleasant and an easy habit to fall into. I've been with groups of geeks where it's impossible to discuss almost any piece of software because it turns into a dick measuring contest. (So to speak.) Still, sometimes some things really are flawed and those flaws are worth pointing out. I suppose that every criticism should be accompanied by some suggestion on how to fix or improve things, but that's not always possible. I don't have any really good suggestions on how to temper negativity other than to encourage people to pause and consider why they are posting something, and for others to try to ignore the posts that irk them.
- aabalkan 13y agoI'm getting this JS error: Uncaught You must specify your applicationId using Parse.initialize while submitting my email. If owners of project are here, I'm using Chrome on Windows.
- louwrentius 13y agoI've just bought the app just to try it out. It works as advertised. But I was even more interested in security. When you install the Mac application, it will ask for your computer's password. This password is then stored, as I understand, on your phone. ////// Quote: When Knock connects to your Mac, it sends your password over that signal using both Bluetooth's built-in encryption and our own proprietary, 1024-bit RSA encryption. ////// I think for many users, this is secure enough. This will probably not do if you are more interesting than an average joe. What I don't like is that 'proprietary' remark. It almost sounds like they wrote their own crypto implementation of RSA 1024. Again: probably safe enough for home use. I searched on knock unlock in the IOS app store and found it immediately. It seems that the Knock application also records usage. Furthermore, I seem to have troubles with sleep, if the computer does not wake from sleep with this app, I'm not sure if I think it's useful.
- mustapha 13y agoTouch-ID to unlock would be fun.
- deleted 13y ago[deleted]
- dannowatts 13y agoi may be completely biased because i have long hair & a (sweet) beard, but … i'm finding it odd that there are people who feel like commenting on the appearance of the gentleman (actor/friend/founder/dude) in the video in a negative way. who cares how a guy in a video is dressed to demonstrate a product? and then even if you don't associate with the type of grooming or style of dress, that's totally cool, but to start throwing around gross oversimplifications like 'hipster'? stop being so fucking superficial.
- potatolicious 13y agoThe tech industry "meritocracy" at work.
- jcutrell 13y agoDear HN. Please stop making a big deal about how you don't like hipster beards. It really makes HN look like pretentious douchebags instead of intelligent thinkers. It makes HN people look like the have no understanding of marketing. If you're going to criticize the marketing, do it from a metrics perspective, rather than being exactly what you're claiming to hate by telling people to stop being hipsters - arrogant. Let people be who they are. Measure them by their output and their product, and the effectiveness of their decisions. Not on whether or not they conform to your taste/style. I get it - if you have design critiques, it makes sense to share those. If you have marketing critiques, it makes sense to share those (like: "If you market this to hipsters, you will not get the hipster-hating crowd to buy"). If you have a personal soap box of despise for another person's tastes, please do not bring it here.
- derefr 13y ago> Let people be who they are. Measure them by their output and their product, and the effectiveness of their decisions. Not on whether or not they conform to your taste/style. I would guess that the true point being made is that these people are not "being who they are," because someone else has caused them to "conform to [their] taste/style." Your reaction is actually pointing out exactly the same thinking on their part as you're using to criticize it: hackers don't like it when someone has forced their idea of aesthetics on them--because hackers are, fundamentally, aesthetes--so we get vicariously offended when they see a trend of some group "forcing" their idea of aesthetics on some other group. This applies even if that "force" is just the majority declaring some particular style to be "objectively fashionable." Hackers don't like the idea that things can be "in vogue", because it coerces their ability to self-style down set paths they might not want to have gone down. Even if they would have liked a particular style, having it be popular means it's no longer their creative idea to choose it--so it doesn't demonstrate their creativity, and that's all they cared about doing in the first place.
- jcutrell 13y agoThat makes sense. However, there's one problem. > these people are not "being who they are," because someone else has caused them to "conform to [their] taste/style." This is assumption based on cultural hints. There have been quite a few times on HN where hackers have proven to indeed not be aesthetes, because hacking marketing requires aesthetic. This goes down to whether or not you appreciate aesthetics of your own appearance, as well. I don't see anyone making the claim that this is "objectively fashionable". What I see is a bunch of people who rage against a marketing decision because it bastardizes their seemingly misguided need for aesthetic "purity" (whatever that means). The criticism I'm offering isn't to stop liking your aesthetic preferences. If you don't like beards, don't grow one. But someone posts a link on HN, and people bitch and moan because the primary subject of marketing is sporting a beard. It really misses the point of HN discussion. Again, I understand if the conversation is centered around the marketing (or other) implications of the decisions made by those who created the product and the site. But the conversation doesn't revolve around that at all. Instead, it's a bunch of "get off my lawn" and raging against trends without any particularly discernible purpose.
- sjtgraham 13y agoholy shit. this is awesome.
- vinautomatic 13y agoLove the site and design. BUT something already does this, for free, it's called keycard. As someone else pointed out, very hard to find on app store, then also, it suddenly costs $3.99 in app store. YOU HID THAT PART NICELY. One other thing, why name your zip file "latest.zip" - took me a good minute to find it in download folder. Apple should already have this crap built in with new ios/mavericks though :( Also, does it work on my mac 2010? Doesn't look like it. >.< Since iOS 7 - nothing works for this type of setup, Knock, or Keycard.
- hnriot 13y ago* One other thing, why name your zip file "latest.zip" - took me a good minute to find it in download folder. ls -lrt ~/Downloads
- vinautomatic 13y agoSo you want me to terminal to find something the latest i've downloaded in my folder? should just be named correctly, professionally.
- woutervdb 13y agoPersonally, I think you should already have your downloads sorted by date, not alphabetically. No matter what the file is called, you can always just assume it's the first/last file in your downloads. I agree the filename should be changed though: latest.zip seems like something you send your friends to give a proof of concept.
- Karunamon 13y agoThe first thing I always do on a new mac is change the downloads folder on the dock to sort by date added. It makes further customization and downloads much easier.
- kaolinite 13y agoKeycard is really unstable and more often than not doesn't work. This works every time - very impressed. The setup was very slick too. Also, complaining about $4? Really?
- marizmelo 13y ago+ great website + great UX - knock just works if I touch my computer once (I would just type my password instead of knock my phone) - knock does not lock my computer if I knock to get a water or something at work for example (version 2 maybe?) - the download file could have the app name on it (I do not care about being a zip) - Expensive for this kind of feature (0.99 would be more appropriate) - Some information about how my password is being stored would be nice
- stcredzero 13y agoHere's a controversial position: This is not going to be popular amongst iOS devs (I am an iOS dev) but the best thing for iOS as a platform is for Apple to appropriate this. With the M7 coprocessor, iOS would be able to register a callback for a given "gesture," like two knocks. Then the phone could implement such functionality while staying in standby! Combined with a facility for securely determining proximity, you could use such a facility to securely unlock everything.
- eddieroger 13y agoHow you reconcile which app gets which gesture then? Would two unlocks trigger both a machine unlock, a text to my mom, and to start playing my podcasts? Not to mention that it's like pulling teeth to get Apple to allow things to happen in the background. I was intrigued at how they did this from a locked phone, and it turns out they don't. You have to have the app launched before knocking, meaning at it's core, this is just a shake listener with a count and some Bluetooth code. Not that it's not worth $4 (yeah, app isn't free), but it's not getting my $4 yet, since typing my password is still easier and plenty secure.
- stcredzero 13y ago> How you reconcile which app gets which gesture then? The user decides. All of the callbacks get registered with a name and description, but the user picks which one is active.
- songzme 13y agoI have been knocking my iPhone 5s for the past 10 minutes, but nothing is happening. On my mac, it seems that everything has been setup correctly, I can see my iphone name in the unlink button, so everything must be set up correctly. On my iPhone 5s, I see my personal icon for my macbook Pro retina 13'' and a big picture of a macbook pro. I have been knocking everywhere in my iPhone: the picture of macbook pro, my macbook pro personal icon, the white spaces around the app, my home screen, notification center, my locked phone, and nothing seems to happen. I understand that you are trying to make this as simple as possible, but things you assume to be obvious might not be obvious for others. For example, where do I knock? Does the phone have to be awake? Does the app have to be open? etc. Also, your app seems to be failing silently. I have been knocking all over the place and it would help tremendously if there was an alert telling me what had gone wrong. That way, I can email support and pinpoint exactly what is wrong. As of now, I have no idea why your app is not working. edit Finally figured out what I was doing wrong. Put your phone flat on the table. Then tap twice on your phone and you should see rings show up on your macbook pro. Your phone can even be locked. Do not hold the phone in your hands while you tap it. I was holding the phone in my hands before, which causes the taps to fail to register.
- cmiller1 13y agoI had the exact opposite experience! Knocking and knocking and knocking, not working... pick it up off the table, works in my hand.
- gfodor 13y agois it possible to use this as a 2-factor solution? that seems like it would be a nice step forward.
- 1st1 13y ago1. How to uninstall it now? 2. It seems the app changed something in the system settings, so that now, when I lock the screen, it goes off. Before, it started to show the screen saver. How to undo this? 3. You should have provided answers to my questions in your FAQ section, really.
- mgrouchy 13y agoThis is pretty cool and its nice that you can knock your phone to unlock while in your pocket but it means if I leave my phone at my desk to charge anyone can unlock my computer, which is a no-go. I wish someone would just hurry up and implement unlocking of your mac via touchid(I have no idea if its technically possible to use touchid for other apps then apples).
- thrillgore 13y agoIt's a good example of practical skeueomorphism but I don't want simplicity to get to my desktop. I want it to be as complex as possible so I know that its ME and ME ALONE accessing my desktop.
- huhtenberg 13y agoHave Apple loosen their restrictions on background services? This is neither VoIP, music or navigation. Any ideas how they slipped this through the approval process?
- sitharus 13y agoYes, as of iOS 7 any app can run in the background.
- joshstrange 13y agoSee this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6676816 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6676816
- jlgreco 13y agoI wonder how well this works if your phone is on an unyielding surface, like a tabletop, instead of against your thigh or in your hand.
- Karunamon 13y agoVery cool, would kill for an Android equivalent.
- batemanesque 13y agodoesn't work for me - I've installed & opened Knock on both Mavericks & iOS7 & Bluetooth (which, to be fair, is through a Belkin USB stick) & the PC doesn't recognize the iPhone, simply telling me to install it from the App Store. I love th concept so would be grateful for a fix...
- batemanesque 13y agoone question - does this use the real Mac login screen or some less-secure alternative? a lot of similar apps I've seen used the latter which is a dealbreaker from a security POV, & it would be great if Knock differs in this respect
- darkbot 13y agoA brilliant idea, beautifully executed.
- moonie1 13y agoYeah, don't use this. You lose key encryption (done at lock screen by osx) and DMA prevention, which were rather nice security features that the default OSX sleep mode provides.
- skattyadz 13y agoThis is annoyingly similar to our Thrust to Unlock... https://vimeo.com/78670679 https://vimeo.com/78670679
- beloch 13y agoBack when KDE got the ability to wake on bluetooth, I set my phone up to unlock my computer whenever I was in the room. This eliminated logging on, but at the price of requiring my phone to have bluetooth running all day. This was back when batteries were not so large as they are now and bluetooth was a bit of a battery hog. Of course, this was the dumb-phone era too, and I was accustomed to charging my phone twice a week! Charging it every day was too much of a hassle so I soon went back to logging on with the keyboard. I charge my phone every day anyways now, so it would be zero trouble to use wake-on-bluetooth again, but the novelty isn't there and logging in via keyboard is easy so I haven't bothered. This tap-your-phone stuff is similar, except less convenient. You actually have to take your phone out of your pocket and then tap on it, as opposed to just walking up to your computer and having it unlock automatically. In fact, this is probably slower than logging in via keyboard, depending on how fast a draw you are.
- frankus 13y agoThe big breakthrough here is that Bluetooth LE uses a totally negligible amount of power (such that many devices can run for years on a CR2032 button cell). Also, you don't need to take your phone out of your pocket to tap it (it doesn't have to touch the computer, just any moderately firm object, such as a knuckle through a pants pocket).
- fnbr 13y agoIs it that it doesn't work with pre-2012 MBPs, or that it hasn't been tested on them?