A look at Sign in with Apple, which is available for users with iOS 13 for a small number of apps including Nike, Instacart, Bird, and Kayak at launch
Apple wants its new password killer to cut your dependency on Facebook and Google—if you can find it in the apps you use most
Context & Ripple Effects
When Apple unveiled the service in June, it came with two hooks: it masks email addresses, and it is mandatory for iOS apps that already offer third-party logins. Today it ships with iOS 13 itself — but only a handful of apps, including Nike, Instacart, Bird, and Kayak, actually surface it.
The gap between mandate and availability is the story: Apple is using its App Store leverage to force distribution of an alternative to Facebook and Google's login buttons, while the WSJ notes most users will struggle to find it in the apps they use daily. This is also the first step on the path that later leads to Apple's passkey demos with Face ID and Touch ID.
First-order effects
- iOS 13 users who find the button in early adopters like Instacart, Nike, Bird, and Kayak can sign up without handing an email address to those apps — and without routing the login through Facebook or Google.
- Developers of iOS apps that offer third-party logins are bound by the June mandate to add Sign in with Apple support, expanding integration well beyond the four launch apps over time.
Second-order effects
- Facebook and Google begin losing access to the identity layer on iOS: every account created through Apple masks the email and personal details their login buttons were built to harvest.
- App makers face a design tradeoff between login friction and compliance — offering a fourth button that Apple mandates but that, at launch, few users see in practice.
Third-order effects
- If the mandate holds, identity on iOS consolidates around Apple-controlled authentication, weakening the social-login duopoly that made Facebook and Google default gatekeepers across mobile apps.
- The endpoint visible in later coverage is passwordless biometric login: by 2021 Apple demos passkeys using Face ID and Touch ID, joining Microsoft and Google in moving past passwords entirely — a shift this launch sets up.
The trend: Mobile authentication is migrating from the Facebook-Google social-login duopoly toward platform-controlled identity, first via masked-email sign-in and ultimately passwordless biometric credentials.