At this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote, Apple took some time to announce a brand new, secure way to log into websites and applications. The new “Sign in with Apple” is meant to help customers navigate the internet, their favorite sites and apps, and keep things a bit more anonymous along the way. And despite having a competing button with a very different outlook, Google’s login chief likes Apple’s methodology.
In a new interview with The Verge, Google’s product management director, Mark Risher, details why he believes Apple’s new login button is a great step in the right direction, even if it is, technically, a competing product to what Google has all over the internet already. And while Risher does like Apple’s new option, he did take a bit of a negative stance to the way Apple framed its new option compared to the other ones out there offered by Google and Facebook:
There was a bunch of innuendo wrapped around the release that suggested that only one of them is pure and the rest of them are kind of corrupt, and obviously I don’t like that.
Risher says that, when it comes to Google’s own login button, the only time data is logged is the moment of authentication. That information is not shared anywhere, and says that the button is less data-harvesting focused as some might expect.
However, while Risher does have some annoyances about the way Apple announced its new login button, as far as it relates to comparison to Google, he says that, ultimately, the button will make people “much safer” in the long run because it reduces the requirement of a password:
I honestly do think this technology will be better for the internet and will make people much, much safer. Even if they’re clicking our competitors button when they’re logging into sites, that’s still way better than typing in a bespoke username and password, or more commonly, a recycled username and password.
The full interview with Risher is worth a read, especially if you’re curious about Google’s stance in general on Apple’s newest security-focused feature for the internet.
The new Sign In with Apple feature will arrive later this year. Are you looking forward to its launch?