In brief: Apple will have plenty on show at next week’s Worldwide Developer Conference. According to reports, one of these will be a new password management app called Passwords that could challenge popular rivals such as LastPass and 1Password on the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and even Windows devices.
The dedicated password app will be part of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS 15, according to Bloomberg‘s anonymous sources. It will be unveiled on June 10 at WWDC.
Apple has long offered iCloud Keychain as a password manager to its users, letting them generate, store, and sync passwords across iDevices and the Vision Pro. However, it’s not as user-friendly or feature-packed as the top password managers available today.
Apple’s Passwords app will be powered by the iCloud Keychain and split user logins into different categories, such as accounts, Wi-Fi networks, and Passkeys. This is something other password managers do as well. Credentials saved in the app can be set to auto-fill when visiting corresponding sites or apps.
While it is primarily a product for Apple devices, Bloomberg says the software will work on Windows computers, too. It also generates authentication codes, making it work as an authenticator app just like Google Authenticator, Authy, and LastPass’ authenticator.
News that Apple may be introducing a dedicated password app will likely worry other password managers, especially LastPass. The company made its free tier less appealing to users in 2021 when it forced them to pick a single device type for their passwords – computer or mobile – while other features became paid-for only. The biggest PR disasters, however, were the security breaches that the company has suffered, including one in 2022 that resulted in partially encrypted user login data being stolen.
The password manager app might be one of the few things Apple reveals at WWDC that isn’t AI-focused. Cupertino is said to be giving Siri a major AI overhaul in iOS 18, enabling users to control specific app features using their voice. It will initially be available for Apple’s in-house apps only, and the voice assistant will respond to only one command at a time, but Apple is working on expanding its functionality.