Passwords can often be a pain. You have to come up with a clever phrase and then remember it, and while password managers like 1Password can make things a little bit better, it can still be annoying to enter your info into the app and use it that way. Twitter thinks that it’s solved this password problem with a new feature called Digits.
Digits is a new feature that developers will be able to implement to make it easier for users to sign up for their apps. Users will be presented with the option to sign in to an app with their phone number, and when they do, Twitter will send them a confirmation code using SMS. That one-time use code can then be entered to sign you in.
Once you begin using Digits, you’ll be able to manage which apps have access to your phone number using Digits’ dedicated website. Twitter says that Digits will eventually offer two-step authentication for apps as well that will send you a secondary PIN that can be used in conjunction with the one-time use confirmation code.
Between the password managers that’ve become popular in mobile and all of the recent data breaches at various retailers, there’s been a lot of focus on security in the mobile world lately. Digits sounds like a way to try and help users be more secure by using their phone number, which is likely more difficult for baddies to hijack and use for their own nefarious deeds. As The Verge notes, Digits can also make it easier for users that don’t have an email address to sign up for services.
Twitter says that Digits is “coming soon” to apps like Fitstar and Onefootball. What do you think of Digits? Does it sound like a good substitute for the password?
