Google Unveiled Smart Lock Password Manager for Automatic Logins

[dgstorm]

One of the coolest things revealed at Google I/O 2015 went a bit "under the radar." Higher profile technologies took the limelight, but Google's new "Smart Lock" Password Manager could end up being one of the most used concepts of the event.

Smart Lock is basically a new password manager that is meant to help facilitate automatic logins. Here's a quote directly from Google with some of the details,

With Smart Lock for Passwords, you get frictionless sign-in and sign-up into apps on Android and sites in Chrome with any account. Users will get automatically signed-in across devices.

In turn, you reduce the risk of forgotten user passwords and missed conversion opportunities when users get frustrated trying to sign in or move on to another activity.

Once your user saves a password to Smart Lock, they can skip entering their credentials on all of their Chrome and Android devices.

It looks like several companies have already announced support for Smart Lock including Netflix, The New York Times, Orbitz, Instacart, and Eventbrite.

Although it seems incredibly convenient, it seems like this service could become a potentially contentious security issue. Google hasn't shared more details yet on how they address this concern. What do you folks think?

Source: Google Identity Platform Google Developers

 

[LoneWolfArcher]

That is awesome. I use LastPass for Chrome (its free) but never wanted to buy it for Android.

 

[tommyz]

That is awesome. I use LastPass for Chrome (its free) but never wanted to buy it for Android.

LastPass for Android is so worth the money. I still do look forward to see what this new thing is capable of doing.

 

[pc747]

Looks like it is online now. Just logged into netflix with it.

 

[thunderbolt_nick]

It looks like several companies have already announced support for Smart Lock including Netflix, The New York Times, Orbitz, Instacart, and Eventbrite.

It's too bad those are the only services available. I can't wait until other companies join in.

 

[Gremlin]

Smartlock password is ready?

 

[thunderbolt_nick]

Smartlock password is ready?

According to @pc747 it sure is. He was successful in logging into Netflix. Of course it might be a staged rollout and only certain people have it now.

 

[pc747]

According to @pc747 it sure is. He was successful in logging into Netflix. Of course it might be a staged rollout and only certain people have it now.

Only a few apps are using the api, the ones listed in the op.

Unless you just want to mess with it just cause and log in and out of Netflix, I am betting it will take a bit for some of the other apps to incorporate it.

But that is the point of the dev previews. To allow developers an early head start to get apps ready by time the official release goes out.