Use Your Android Device As an IOS Security Key
If you’re one of those chaos-ridden people who own and use Android and iOS devices, Google now lets you use your Android smartphone as a physical security key to log into your Google account on iOS .
We’ll show you how to set it all up, but first, we want to acknowledge the concerns that have been raised about this form of two-factor authentication (or 2FA, which is different from text – based two-step security ). These include reports that using your Android device as an iOS security key can be more difficult, if it works at all.
However, the whole process worked fine for us and was pretty easy to set up. Here’s how to try it:
- Before you can use it to sign in to iOS, you need to assign your Android phone as the physical authentication key for your Google account, the process we explained earlier .
- Next, you’ll want to download the Google Smart Lock app to your iOS device if you haven’t already.
When Smart Lock is installed and you are ready to log in, follow these steps:
- Turn on Bluetooth on both devices.
- Open Google Smart Lock on your iOS device.
- Log into your Google account and use your phone as a 2FA key that will send a push notification to your Android device.
- Check your Android phone and tap the notification when it appears.
- Follow the instructions to complete the login.
You can use the instructions above to check your logins on an iOS device. This process worked for us, but as we said earlier, some reports suggest that the process may not go as smoothly as Google suggested. If that works, then congratulations – you have a new 2FA login method for your Google account on iOS! If not, check out our suggestions for other two-factor security tools .