DECEMBER 2019 MACWORLD 27your iPhone’s Face ID/Touch ID/or
passcode and it can tell when it’s
actually on your wrist. To be sure,
there are ways to circumvent this
and use it for malicious
purposes, but there’s always
a balance between
security and convenience.
The password/
passcode has become a
daily fact of our life, but,
despite that, it’s not a
particularly good security
method: people forget passwords, pick
easily guessed ones, or write them down
somewhere insecure. And for those who
don’t have the option of built-in biometric
authentication on their Mac via Touch ID,
the Apple Watch is the next best thing.
Plus, it certainly doesn’t hurt as a selling
point for the Watch either.
SCREENING PROCESS
There’s plenty of opportunity for Apple to
make its devices work together, but the
flip side of that opportunity is responsibility
in how its products are being used. The
company rolled out a Screen Time feature
to iOS last year, giving users a picture of
how much time they spent with their
devices. But it had a big hole on the
Mac—until Catalina rolled around. Now
Screen Time is on macOS as well,
meaning that the company can actually
paint a more comprehensive picture of
how we’re using our devices.
That’s also important for features like
content restrictions, which previously
weren’t synced between Apple’s two
biggest platforms. (There’s still no Screen
Time option on Apple TV, which may prove
a sticking point, especially with the addition
of Apple Arcade there.) But especially now
that Apple has rolled out multi-user support
for tvOS, it wouldn’t be too surprising to see
a Screen Time feature expanded to that
platform in tvOS 14.
Apple’s devices have always played
well with each other; that’s a big part of the
company’s appeal. But with Catalina, we
see that the future is going to, more than
ever, be about the ways each of Apple’s
products can fill in the gaps for the overall
ecosystem, bringing it all together as a
unified whole. ■