Apple wants you to stop remembering passwords (and cheat)

July 9, 2018 TH Author

Video: Face ID beefs up iPhone security. But is it right for everybody?

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Our minds are in tatters.

Our brains are overloaded.

There’s too much coming at us all the time. There’s too much we need to know and do.

And how on Earth can we keep up with everything our friends know and do? We don’t want to seem inferior, do we?

Then there’s the problem of winning a game show. Answering questions requires a fine memory, yet we’re already at capacity.

Apple wants to ease your pain. In a new ad for iPhone X, it presents a game show-style Memory Challenge.

Our hero, who looks a little like a distant relative of Ewan McGregor, is clearly doing very well. He’s down to his final challenge.

The audience is more excited than it’s ever been at the symphony or the opera.

Still, the final challenge is one with which we’re all familiar: Our hero must remember the password for his online banking account. This should be easy. He created it only this morning.

Reality, though, it’s not.

We create something new, we do our business, and we forget to store that password, either somewhere safe or somewhere in our overloaded brains.

The next time we visit the online banking site, we’re forced to create yet another new password.

Here, though, there’s real money at stake. Who knows how much our hero might win? This might change his life.

Our audience understands the pressure. One onlooker cannot cope with it and passes out.

How will our hero remember?

The audience’s sympathy has its limits. Some members begin to laugh at him. What a fool. What an idiot. Yes, he’s just like us.

However, this man is far, far ahead of its time. Despite the fact that this Memory Challenge appears to be set in the 50s, he already has an iPhone X. With its extraordinary Face ID, it knows your face as the signature to your online world’s inner workings.

So our man pulls out his phone and cheats. And wins. Is there any other way of winning these days?

Apple has carved itself a promise that it’s more secure and more privacy-conscious than any other tech company.

It’s constantly walking the painfully thin line between ease and personal compromise. It’s remarkable how Face ID, which incited concern and even ridicule when it was first presented, seems to have become just another phone feature.

Some still don’t entirely trust it. Many just wish it would work all the time.

For the iPhone X user, though, the dilemma is the same way as the one presented in this ad. Do you truly believe that your phone is secure, that your personal information remains — as Apple often promises — only on your phone?

Or, as our hero here, might you be living in a dream?

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