We've all been there. You just want to get to the juicy news, but before you can, you have to jump through countless hoops to decipher words hidden in a mess of lines, and tag every taxi in a series of photos, just to prove you're human. But an upcoming update from Apple suggests an end to these annoying CAPTCHA tasks could be on the horizon.
There were a number of eye-catching announcements at this year's WWDC 2022 Apple event, and we reported on more of the headline reveals at the time, including the new Apple MacBook Air M2. Now it looks like iOS 16 and MacOS Ventura, both announced at the event but not due for release until later this year, may spell the end of irritating CAPTCHAs.
According to MacRumours , Apple users will be able to go to Settings on their device and under Apple ID > Password & Security and then activate Automatic Verification. Once this is done Apple's iCloud will verify you in the background whenever a site asks you to prove you're a real, you know, human being.
A simple diagram released by Apple to show how its Private Access Token system will work (Image credit: Apple)
The technical bit: behind the scenes your Apple ID and account is checked and rated, this is then awarded a Private Access Token status and enables you to bypass any annoying CAPTCHAs. A video for this new feature appeared at Apple's summer developer event.
Apple has been developing the tech with content delivery networks Fastly and Cloudflare. It has also been keen to point out that the Private Access Token process doesn't share any of your information with the sites involved, so your emails and data remain untouched. Essentially Apple does the heavy lifting and gives the sites a trusted 'thumbs up' on your behalf.
This isn't the first time a company has tried to help us dodge frustrating CAPTCHA tests, as way back in 2019 we reported how Google's reCAPTCHA aimed to solve the same problem. Google's solution was far too complex and aimed at developers, Apple's system just means ticking a box in our Settings. Some users are able to test Apple's fix right now in Beta. The rest of us can find out how this works later in the year when iOS 16 and macOS Ventura get a rumoured September launch.
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Ian Dean is Editor, Digital Arts & 3D at Creative Bloq, and the former editor of many leading magazines. These titles included ImagineFX, 3D World and video game titles Play and Official PlayStation Magazine. Ian launched Xbox magazine X360 and edited PlayStation World. For Creative Bloq, Ian combines his experiences to bring the latest news on digital art, VFX and video games and tech, and in his spare time he doodles in Procreate, ArtRage, and Rebelle while finding time to play Xbox and PS5.
