Knock App Lets You Unlock Your Mac By Knocking On Your iPhone

I have a confession: I dislike putting passwords and passcodes on my devices. I find the extra step to be a hindrance, especially since I find myself having to unlock devices several times in an hour. It is a security measure, for sure, but I would rather have something like a fingerprint scanner that will allow me to bypass having to key in my password. Call it lazy, if you want, but that’s how it is.

Of course, not many devices today have fingerprint scanning capabilities, so we have to make do with what we have – that is, if we are in the slightest bit concerned about privacy and security.

Knock knock knocking
Enter the Knock App.

The underlying idea is to make it simple for users to gain access to their Mac (or MacBook) by pairing it with an iPhone. As the name implies, you merely have to knock (literally) to have the door (figuratively) opened to you.

How it works
First you need to install the iOS app. If you’ve got $3.99 to spare, then it’s easy enough to download and install. To complete the process, you have to visit the Knock web site on your Mac and download the app there as well. You’ll then have to pair the two devices so that you’ll simply have to knock on your iPhone the next time you want to gain access to your computer.

Pretty nifty, huh? Here’s a video to show you more.

Conclusion
I liked the idea so much that I didn’t think twice about purchasing the app. A week later, however, I have to say that I don’t use it anymore. One reason is that I couldn’t get it to work on my MacBook Air. For some reason, things just wouldn’t go beyond the pairing stage. I tried uninstalling and reinstalling several times, to no avail.

Installation of Knock App did work on the MacBook Pro flawlessly. However, there seems to be an issue with unlocking. More often than not, you’d have to knock really hard – and many times, too – for the MBP to unlock. I have a feeling that it’s an iOS/OSX issue, so I’ll wait for further updates and see what happens.

Still, others seem to have had issue-free experiences, so I think it’s worth a try.

Anyone who uses Knock App here? Your input?

[Image via The Verge]