What you need to know
- Apple's iOS 15.4 beta includes support for adding text notes to passwords.
- Notes are protected by Face ID and Touch ID.
- There is no new interface for managing passwords.
Apple's new iOS 15.4 beta includes a change that allows people to put text notes with their passwords. The feature is one that is already available in a ton of dedicated password managers and is arguably something that should have been part of iCloud Keychain long before now.
Apple recently made the first iOS 15.4 beta available to developers and one of the changes they have spotted is the arrival of a new notes field in iCloud Keychain password entires. Notes can be typed into that field and as you'd expect they are fully protected by Face ID and Touch ID depending on the device that you are using.
Unfortunately, none of this is housed in a new interface, meaning iCloud Keychain still lives within the Settings app. At this point, that's the biggest problem acing the feature that has grown considerably in recent years. Hopefully, Apple will one day move iCloud Keychain into a dedicated password management app similar to that of 1Password and LastPass, making it easier to manage, edit, and create passwords than is currently the case. Still, the arrival of notes is a welcome one.
Apple's iOS 15.4 will likely be made available to public beta testers shortly and we can expect the public to be able to get their hands on it this spring. This is the first beta to be made available to developers and there are likely to be a few more before it's ready to be made available to all.
