Two Factor/Step Authentication - Apple Watch

[iMore Question]

I recently bought an Apple Watch. I was wondering whether you can use it as a two-factor authenticator when logging in to iCloud, Google and elsewhere. The device is always on my wrist so it only seems natural to have code prompts on there rather than pulling out my phone from my pocket. (Defeats the whole purpose of having an Apple Watch in the first place).

I'm not sure how this works or if this is even possible. Hoping for the former as it would be a great motivating factor to secure my other accounts with two factor. Currently, I don't have such security in place with other accounts purely because of the pain of using codes etc. This would be a game changer for me.

 

[Tartarus]

Hi, welcome to imore,

Unfortunately this is not possible.
Hopefully in near future developers will see the benefits of such a feature and implement this soon.

My recommendation is to set up two factor authentication regardless of inconvenient or not.
The 6 digits that you need are send by text message for most apps and otherwise there are Authenticator apps that you need to open and type over the 6 digits it generates for you.

Here is an example of such an authenticator app:

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