Apple Passwords’ generated strong password format

I'm glad someone is thinking about UX and ergonomics when it comes to passwords. Most people I interact with have by now realized that generating passwords is a good idea. But if you are already generating the password, please do not include special characters. I regularly use different keyboard layouts (sometimes it is not even clear which layout is active, like in the vSphere web console), and the fact that passwords are often not shown on the screen when typing them makes for terrible UX and causes frustration.

The usual advice about character classes is only for casual users who don't know what makes a secure password. Entropy is the deciding factor: Ten random lower case letters is much more secure than "Summer2024!", which satisfies most password rules and has more characters.

Personally I stick to lower case letters for things like my Netflix password or Wifi key, because typing with a TV remote can be a huge pain. To keep a similar entropy, just increase the length by one or two characters.

I wasn't an Apple user until almost exactly a year ago, and the auto-generated passwords were an inspiration to me to cobble together a script that generates such passwords in multiple languages [1]. I couldn't find any info on these passwords, so I am glad this is posted, because indeed, I find the format brilliant!

[1] https://pypi.org/project/applephrase/