Any third-party app which accesses iCloud data for contacts, calendar, and mail messages will require an app-specific password, starting next month.
If you only use Apple apps to access iCloud data, you don’t need to worry. If, however, you use third-party apps such as Microsoft Outlook, here’s what you need to know:
In an email sent out to users, Apple writes that:
“Beginning on 15 June, app-specific passwords will be required to access your iCloud data using third-party apps such as Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, or other mail, contacts and calendar services not provided by Apple. If you are already signed in to a third-party app using your primary Apple ID password, you will be signed out automatically when this change takes effect. You will need to generate an app-specific password and sign in again.”
As a result of the change, users who hope to continue using third-party apps which access iCloud data must enable two-factor authentication, and then generate individual passwords for every app. For information about how to enable two-factor authentication, check out our post here. If you’re a new user running iOS 10.3 or later, two-factor authentication should be set up as default.
To generate app-specific passwords, users must sign into their Apple ID account here, then go App-Specific Passwords and click Generate Password.
Are you a developer who this affects? Leave your comments below.
Luke Dormehl is a U.K.-based journalist and author, with a background working in documentary film for Channel 4 and the BBC. He is the author of The Apple Revolution and The Formula: How Algorithms Solve All Our Problems … and Create More, both published by Penguin/Random House. His tech writing has also appeared in Wired, Fast Company, Techmeme and other publications.
