By Glenn Fleishman

September 29, 2025 8:45 AM PT

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Export keys securely from Passwords to third-party managers

I ranted about the joy of passkeys and some of their limitations a few weeks ago, and that prompted a question from Six Colors member Ampsonic¹, a naturally occurring and renewable source of excellent queries:

Can you use 1Password to store a passkey for an Apple Account?

Unfortunately, you can’t yet! Apple uses a unique process to generate the passkey for an Apple Account—it’s generated on device, the only time I am aware of this ever happens for a passkey. This makes it uniquely the only passkey that requires an Apple device to generate or use.² It doesn’t even show up in Passwords, because it’s a different kind of beast.

Answered.

But, oh, there is more to talk about.

I have been reluctant to recommend 1Password or any password manager to hold your passkeys unless you regularly use non-Apple devices or are absolutely all in on 1Password (or another ecosystem) to the near exclusion of Passwords and iCloud Keychain as your password manager and sync solution.

The reason had two components: utility and portability.

• It’s very useful to have integrated support for passkey filling across all your Apple devices with zero extra effort. This is true with third-party password managers, but because I started using passkeys with built-in support, I was invested in it.
• You couldn’t yet move passkeys across ecosystems, so unless a site or app supported creating multiple passkeys for your account, you were stuck, unless you went through a rigamarole to disable and re-enable the passkey.³

Suppose you could easily copy passkeys among password-management ecosystems, eliminating the second point? In that case, the first point matters much less. Fortunately, we are on the verge of this major change! Along with portability, introduced in iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26 Tahoe, comes a few other passkey (and password) improvements. Apple didn’t document any of these in its release notes for the operating systems because they all require third-party buy-in, which is already starting to happen.

Bringing passkeys in line with passwords and raising them higher

I think passkeys are the bee’s knees, so anything that makes them easier to adopt is a great move in my book, as it will make everyone’s lives easier and their identities more secure. At WWDC 2025, Apple’s Andrew Abosh presented changes that are now in production releases to smooth the passkey wheels further.

Three of these are at the website end and require websites to make changes in their authentication software to take advantage. First, sites can now offer a streamlined sign-up process that Apple devices will pick up on, making it easy to generate a passkey as to accept a password recommendation from Passwords (or third-party password managers). Second, a website can push updates to your registered account—like if you change your email address—to the password manager so that those details associated with your passkey remain in sync. Third, there’s now an automatic upgrade workflow that lets a website prompt you to shift from password to passkey.⁴

But the particular issue above, portability, was addressed at timestamp 19:11 in the session.⁵ This standard has been in the works for a few years, and the FIDO Alliance—the group that has been moving us towards a “password-free” future, seriously—released a spec last October, then celebrated Apple’s news in June of this year.

You can see this in action with the latest operating system updates (step-by-step instructions next). When you use export in iOS 26, iPadOS 26, or Tahoe, you’re prompted for a destination app instead of relying on the old method, which was an unencrypted comma-separated value (CSV) file. The dialog notes, “Your items are securely transferred to the app you choose.”

So that’s that. But what about 1Password? Let’s walk through the export process.

Import and export a passkey in the most secure way

The only bad news about the above is that the major password-manager developers haven’t all updated their systems yet to support this FIDO standard as implemented by Apple:

• 1Password has no information about a timeline for adoption. (I sent a query.)
• Bitwarden is ready to go as of its new release on September 23, the day I started writing this column!
• Dashlane also added support around the same time. Timing is everything.

I’ll walk you through exporting from the Passwords app in iOS 26:⁶

1. Open Passwords.
2. Tap the more … button and choose Export Data to Another App.
3. Select entries and tap Continue.
4. Acknowledge the truth of what Apple tells you about exporting passwords and tap Continue.
5. Choose an applicable app, such as Bitwarden. Tap Continue.
6. Apple alerts you that these password entries will be exported to the third-party password manager. Tap Continue in “App Name.”
7. In that app, follow the steps to complete. In Bitwarden, you tap Continue to import the entries.

I would have shown you Tahoe, instead, because it has better selection tools for choosing entries first; then you export them. However, there is a bug either in Tahoe or Bitwarden, as I cannot get the app to appear as a choice. Here are the steps, nonetheless, for when this works in the near future:

1. Launch Passwords.
2. Select entries with passkeys (or other passwords) to export.
3. Choose Export Selected Item to App.
4. Authenticate with Touch ID or your account password. (iOS and iPadOS don’t prompt you for this authentication.)
5. Select a Destination app and click Continue. (This is where Tahoe fails me.)
6. Confirm the export by clicking Continue in “App Name.”
7. Complete the import in the other password manager.

This process copies the passkey without moving it. Passkeys don’t need to be refreshed, since only your devices possess and sync the private keys required for your part of the authentication. Unless your equipment was compromised, the passkey could last forever.

Update: Unfortunately, I initially answered the question at the head of this question incorrectly. I had a false memory of receiving a prompt to create a passkey for my Apple Account; that is not how it works. For now and possibly forever, Apple Account passkeys are locked to devices and cannot be exported. Thanks to an alert reader for pointing this out!

Update: Dashlane and Bitwarden now both support passkey export. Still no update from 1Password.

[Got a question for the column? You can email glenn@sixcolors.com or use /glenn in our subscriber-only Discord community.]

[Glenn Fleishman is a printing and comics historian, Jeopardy champion, and serial Kickstarterer. His latest books are Six Centuries of Type & Printing (Aperiodical LLC) and How Comics Are Made (Andrews McMeel Publishing).]

By Jason Snell

September 26, 2025 4:00 AM PT

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Apple adds iPhones to Friday Night Baseball coverage

Surprise! Last Friday, Apple TV+’s Friday Night Baseball broadcast of the Giants and the Dodgers featured multiple shots taken on an iPhone 17 Pro. On the final Friday night of the season, the company will repeat the feat during tonight’s Tigers-Red Sox game (7 pm ET).

According to Apple, four iPhone 17 Pros will be positioned at Fenway Park — in the Green Monster, the home dugout, and roaming the stands. In contrast to the secrecy of last week, the Tigers-Red Sox game will feature a bug in the corner of the screen that shows off the shots that are coming from an iPhone.

Is it a self-promotional gimmick? Sure, but Apple is paying a lot of money for MLB rights. Also, it’s not as if the company hasn’t pushed its MLB telecasts in a bunch of different ways. The Friday Night Baseball broadcasts look great, and have featured loads of helmet and body cams, a cinematic depth-of-field camera, and even in-stadium drone shots. Apple has probably earned at least one night of iPhone Pro product integration.

Unfortunately, even though the iPhone is capable of shooting 4K video and beyond, the ones in Apple’s MLB broadcasts will be locked to 1080p at 60 frames per second, because stadium broadcast infrastructures just haven’t caught up with the 4K world. The iPhones will be running the Blackmagic Camera app, allowing iPads back in the production trailer to control exposure and white balance settings remotely. They’ll also be attached to the just-announced Blackmagic Camera Pro Dock, which integrates all the different connections needed to fit them into the production and make them just another broadcast camera.

Apple says that one advantage of using iPhones rather than traditional broadcast cameras is that they’re small enough to fit in places like the corners of dugouts and less intimidating for candid fan shots, since we’re all used to looking at smartphone cameras. (Maybe not on tripods attached to Blackmagic Camera Pro Docks, but it’s still a fairly small footprint.)

According to Apple, Major League Baseball even attached its little holographic “validation” stickers to the iPhones used in last Friday’s broadcast from Dodger Stadium, signifying that they were the first iPhones used to broadcast an MLB game. (Apple didn’t say, but I assume one of those phones will be sent to the Hall of Fame?)

This is the fourth year of Apple TV+’s Friday-night doubleheader. Some reports have suggested the partnership might be ending after this season, but the latest one I’ve seen suggests that Apple TV+ would be continuing on Friday nights. When all that gets resolved, we’ll see if this was a last hurrah or the start of something new.

By Jason Snell

September 25, 2025 11:56 AM PT

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Nic’s Fix brings back original HomePods (like mine)

One of my original HomePods died last year of a sudden illness. It was survived by its fellow stereo pair. So a friend gave me her own lonely surviving HomePod, and the mismatched couple let the music play on for a little while. But then my other original HomePod died—also suddenly, same symptoms—leaving my friend’s HomePod tragically alone and my back bedroom studio silent.

That’s when another friend recommended Nic’s Fix, a one-man operation in the Seattle area that’s devoted to repairing HomePods. I sent my recently deceased HomePod to Nic, who seems to have mastered the disassembly and reassembly of HomePods—it’s tricky stuff!—and has cataloged the entire litany of reasons they die.

Nic fixed my HomePod live on YouTube, and it’s back in working order, reunited with its stereo pair. He says no HomePod repair exceeds $90, so it seemed like a pretty good deal rather than going out and finding a new pair of smart speakers. Especially since I know that I can fix the other one if it dies, too.

Some other cool things about Nic’s service: He provides a one-year warranty, he’ll clean or even re-color your HomePod’s mesh while he’s at it, and he repairs and replaces obviously worn or tired parts when he spots them. Among others who have used his services are Dan Moren (whose HomePod was a victim of Death Farts), John Siracusa (like mine, no power), and Steve and Allison Sheridan (no power). Allison also interviewed Nic on her podcast.

What can I say? If you have an original HomePod and don’t want to say goodbye, I recommend Nic’s service.

By Jason Snell

September 24, 2025 12:19 PM PT

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Charting the path of the A19 Pro

One of the first things I did when I got the new iPhones into Six Colors global HQ was to get the iPhone 17 Pro Max up and running and run Geekbench 6. (I know there are a lot of Geekbench scores out there, but I like to run my own, just because.) Because I’m curious about the pace of Apple silicon innovation.

The A19 Pro chip in the iPhone 17 Pro is presumably using the next generation of CPU and GPU cores that will also appear later this year or early next year in the M5 processor. So it’s not just a view into how the chips have progressed for the iPhone, but also an indication about where gains will be made in the next generation of Macs.

In terms of CPU, the step from A18 Pro to A19 Pro seems smaller than normal, though there may be extenuating circumstances. Single-core performance in Geekbench only increased 3% in my preliminary tests, which is the lowest gain I’ve seen in years. Multi-core performance, on the other hand, went up by 9%—much better, even if it’s a less impressive gain than any in the last four generations.

One of the tricky things in judging raw performance on an Apple silicon chip is that it’s not a single thing, but a collection of things. The A19 Pro chip on my iPhone Pro Max has six CPU cores, only two of which are high-powered “performance cores.” The other four are power-efficient “efficiency cores,” a name that implies unimpressive cores designed for the weakest of tasks.

But over the last few years, Apple has really improved its efficiency cores. Efficiency cores may not help a device conquer the most brutal processing tasks, but the faster they are, the less likely it is that the big, bad performance cores need to be kicked into gear. The more work that can be done on efficiency cores, the better—but that work is often invisible to things like benchmarks that seek to measure maximum performance.

It’s rare to see the percentage improvement of single-core scores and multi-core scores as divergent as they are this generation. I suspect what I’m seeing is the added power of four improved efficiency cores contributing to a high multi-core score, even if the performance cores on the A19 Pro aren’t a spectacular leap forward.

If you’ve been following the progress of Apple silicon the last few years, this shouldn’t be too unexpected. From generation to generation, Apple shows love to specific parts of their chips while leaving other parts alone. Some years, it’s a revamped Neural Engine (this year with the A19 Pro, in fact) or an upgraded GPU core design. Other years, it’s all about the CPUs. It varies, and the net result is forward progress over time—but not necessarily in every area, every year.

Speaking of which, this year’s GPU scores are way up.

This is the biggest increase in the overall GPU Compute score in six generations, and even longer if you divide the score by the number of GPU cores available. The A19 Pro generates Geekbench GPU Compute scores 65 percent faster than the A17 Pro of just two years ago, with the same core count. It’s been an impressive couple of years on the GPU front.

What does this augur for the M5 processor? You never know if Apple has a trick up its sleeve, and the M5 will have an innovation not integrated into the A19 Pro, but it sure looks like the trend this year is a more efficient CPU and a big boost to the GPU. The addition of AI accelerators on the GPU and the updates to the Neural Engine also suggest to me that these new chips will do really well on AI benchmarks.

Also, for the record, these numbers don’t really change the numbers much if we’re talking about if Apple used an A-series processor in a low-cost MacBook. Either the A18 Pro or A19 Pro could be used to power a MacBook that would match the M3 in single-core and surpass the M1 in multi-core and GPU.

As always, there’s much more to come at Six Colors as we dig into these iPhones and also await the arrival of the M5 chip, whenever that happens!

By Glenn Fleishman

September 22, 2025 11:25 AM PT

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Solution to a “Jeopardy!” streaming conundrum: What is Tailscale?

It is perhaps not surprising that my spouse and I raised a Jeopardy! fan. Our older child, halfway through college, not only loves the show but has developed an encyclopedic knowledge of geography, transit systems, musical instruments, and much more. Or should I write encyclopaedic, as they are spending this current term in London on a study abroad program? That plays into the story.

If you have followed my career, you will know both that I won two episodes of Jeopardy! (just like Dan Moren) and that I have a nearly obsessive interest in ways to enable remote access to and control of your Mac and other devices when you are outside your local network. I have, in the past, even written an entire ebook on the topic.

London, Jeopardy!, and remote access and control all intersect when I received a text from said child late in the evening, their time. The system we use (and updated) is a good solution for any locally recorded or stored media files.

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