Back in May last year, Apple announced that it would merge its own iCloud document and data service in iCloud Drive in May 2022. Now the company’s latest report reveals that this merger is complete. Updated it yesterday supporting document that users who have previously used iCloud Documents & Data to sync files between devices will do so now you need to turn on iCloud Drive to see their files.
Apple provides instructions and minimum system requirements for iCloud Drive on iOS devices, Macs, and iCloud.com in a support document. Most iCloud users already have iCloud Drive active, so it won’t affect them. However, users who have had an iCloud account before the launch of iCloud Drive in 2014 but never activated, you will now need to turn it back on to access the relevant files.
When users switch to iCloud Drive, iCloud’s occupied storage capacity will not change. The iCloud Docs & Data service will keep cloud-synced data in a specific application folder. In addition, it will only allow access to data from this application. In addition, with the advancement of iCloud Drive, users can now access all files in one place. This includes the iOS / iPadOS Files app, iCloud Drive in macOS Finder, and Network.
iPhone iCloud Keychain adds support for “Master Key” – can be authenticated with a second device
Thanks to the latest additions to the FIDO standard, a password-free future can be more convenient. Apple calls it passwords in iCloud Keychain. The proposal means that users can automatically access a secure website. Interestingly, logging in is now as easy as owning a second Apple device.
Background
As early as 2020, Apple supported FIDO (Fast Identity Online) and announced last year that it was testing it. The company calls its implementation Passkeys in iCloud Keychain, but that’s just another name for FIDO.
How FIDO will work was explained before:
“The FIDO Alliance’s recommendation is that reliable devices replace passwords. This will work in much the same way that Apple uses two-factor authentication (2FA) for Apple devices. When you try to sign in to a new Apple device with your Apple ID, the company sends a code to a trusted device, which the user then enters.
For Apple systems, this is an additional step, but the FIDO consortium hopes to replace passwords with a similar approach – and without the need to enter a password.
For example, if a user tries to access an iPhone website, the user will only need to enter the username and then send a authentication request to the other registered devices of the user, such as Apple Watch. Users can simply click to authorize. Similarly, when accessing a Mac service, the user will be able to authorize iPhone approvals – and so on. “
ICloud Keychain master key enhancements
Touching an Apple Watch or iPhone to allow login is now much better than entering a password. However, the latest proposal even wants to eliminate these actions.
“The FIDO White Paper also includes a proposal to supplement its specification to allow the user’s existing device, such as a laptop, to act as a hardware token in itself, similar to a self-certified Bluetooth device providing physical authentication. The idea is that because Bluetooth is a proximity-based protocol, it is still protected from phishing.
In other words, it’s exactly the same way you unlock your Mac or iPhone with the Apple Watch. It’s just like the iPhone unlocks the Apple Watch. The user does not need additional verification, as the identity has already been confirmed by unlocking the first device.
So when a user enters a Mac website, for example, he checks to see if the iPhone or Apple Watch is within Bluetooth range, and if so, launches it without taking any action.
