OS X 10.12 feature to allow iPhone’s Touch ID to unlock your Mac

With the introduction of OS X 10.12 this summer, one of the big features will apparently be the ability to unlock your Mac via an iPhone’s Touch ID. This will add an air of convenience without actually embedding a sensor inside of Apple’s lineup of laptops, meaning anyone with a Touch ID-equipped device and recent Mac will be able to utilize the feature.

According to MacRumors, Apple engineers are designing an auto unlock function when two Apple devices are in close proximity, skipping the need to enter a long string of text to get into a password-protected Mac. Simply authenticate using your fingerprint and your Mac will unlock.

MacRumors speculates the feature will work similarly to the automatic unlocking feature available on the Apple Watch. Here, an unlocked iPhone can bypass a passcode restriction set on a connected Apple watch, making the process of unlocking much easier. The report claims the upcoming feature will use Bluetooth LE frameworks, so there’s even the possibility of using your Apple Watch to unlock your Mac.

In addition to support for unlocking your Mac via the iPhone’s Touch ID, MacRumors also says the function will be rolled out with the addition of Apple Pay support for browsers. Rather than entering in a ton of information to make purchases, just choose the Apple Pay option and authenticate using your iPhone.

Of course, the report comes with the usual caveat that the feature might not come to OS X 10.12 though we should get confirmation at WWDC in June.