Downloading Xcode With a Passkey
When I went to download the new Xcode beta, I again ran into an annoying Safari behavior, which seems to be specific to Apple’s sites. It pops up an Apple Account sheet offering to sign me in. But it can only sign in with my personal Apple ID, not my developer one. I have to click the blue text “button” to pick a different account, and there’s no keyboard shortcut for that.
Signing into Apple sites normally requires Apple’s special 2FA, which doesn’t work with Safari autofill. So I thought I’d try the Sign in with Passkey button to log in with one step. This should be an ideal use case: Apple’s browser, Apple’s Web site, Apple’s password manager. The first time I clicked the button it showed a progress spinner, and nothing happened for 30 seconds. I reloaded the page and tried again. After 5 seconds, it showed a Sign In sheet, but like the first one it wanted to use my personal Apple ID. I clicked Other Sign in Options, but that only let me use a passkey from a different mobile device or a hardware key.
I thought it was supposed to let me choose from multiple passkeys. Maybe the problem is that I don’t have one for my developer account? I opened the Passwords app, and the Passkeys section showed nothing for Apple. How could this be when account.apple.com does let me sign into my personal account with a passkey? I’m losing hope for the new credentials exchange feature if the app doesn’t even show all of my passkeys.
It seems like I need to create a passkey for my developer account, but I don’t see how to do that. I see nothing about passkeys at account.apple.com or at developer.apple.com/account/. The documentation is almost comically unhelpful:
From anywhere on the Apple Developer website, click Account on the top right.
Sign in to your Apple Account.
Stack Exchange has no idea, saying only that passkeys are created automatically.
Previously:
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Still surviving without passkeys for now, so YMMV....
I have a personal and developer Apple ID. Do my best to keep them separate. So far I may have been prompted for the correct Apple ID (and password) and maybe once - but it may have been App Store Connect - for a 6 digit 2FA sent via text - but downloads seems seamless from Apple for me compared to when I didn't have fiber internet.
Why do you say Safari autofill doesn't work with 2FA? Could be I misunderstand something here. User name, password, then - after a text to your phone - a 6 digit number. I'm assuming a couple of things:
-- Safari, but on macOS.
-- Text to my phone, which is iPhone.
-- No passkey. (Not interested in icloud for *anything*.)
@Dave Safari autofill doesn’t work with Apple’s 2FA where they pop up the dialog with the map and then you have to type in the numbers. It doesn’t go to SMS unless you tell it you can’t find your devices.
I had the same issue and looked it up.
As far as I can tell, seems like passkeys can only be generated for the current Apple ID and not extra ones (like a developer account).
Perhaps Apple is doing some special checking for the ID and the user’s signed-in iCloud account.
And since we can’t export passkeys (yet) between accounts, that’s the end of the line right now.
I haven’t tried this but if my developer account was in the same family group as my personal one, maybe I could share the passkey between the two via Apple Password’s group share.
I haven't used passkeys either - but I've had plenty of problems logging into my Apple Dev account. I have found that bailing and using the Brave browser repeatedly gets it unlocked faster. The consistent problem that the site assumes you want to use your personal Apple ID seems like they could fix that! I don't think I've ever been able to unlock my account without using the SMS option. This whole login seems like a special form of broken!
Thanks for the update on passkeys not helping here - I'll be waiting until I don't hear these sorts of stories before I start using passkeys.
At least if you are using Apple’s Passwords you can use Safari with Passkeys. I am using 1Password and Safari wont let me use 1Password passkeys, intercepts it and messes things up.
Sigh.
