Popular free password manager Bitwarden has revealed it now supports passkeys on iOS devices.
Passkeys can be used in beta via Apple TestFlight, which allows developers to try out test versions of their apps.
The news follows the recent trend of password managers brining passkey support to mobile, including Keeper and Proton Pass. Bitwarden added passkey support to its desktop browser extension last year, and now users can create and store passkeys on their iOS app too. Android support is yet to arrive, however.
Passkeys and password managers
Bitwarden users can also login to their own vaults using passkeys instead of a master password. However, this feature is also still in beta, and only available on the web vault, not in any apps.
Passkeys are a new form of credentials that are set to replace passwords. They rely on cryptographic keys, the private half of which is not know to anyone - not even the user. For this reason, they are considered phishing-resistant.
They are also touted as being more convenient, as all the user typically requires to use them is whatever they use to lock their mobile device, such as their fingerprint, face, or PIN.
The FIDO Alliance governs the technological standards for passkeys - a cross-industry association that has most of big tech on its board, including Apple, Google and Microsoft, as well as other password managers.
In addition to the big tech brands, only a handful of sites and services support passkeys as a means for their users to login to their accounts, such as PayPal, eBay, BestBuy, and WhatsApp, to name a few. It is expected, however, than more and more services will support them over time.
Using a third-party manager for passkeys in iOS means that users can login to their supported accounts with passkeys on any device and platform that their manager is installed on. Using Apple to store passkeys means that they can only be used within the tech giant's ecosystem.
