Very frustrated with our Micro.blog emails being flagged as spam too often lately, so today we added the option to get a text message when signing in. This is a little experimental and will likely evolve. Should be fast and reliable if you want to add your phone number to your account.

Odd-Egil “Oddzthrash” Auran

I think I added the phone number correctly, but haven’t tested it yet. Is it “00” + country code + phone number?

Manton Reece

@odd Sorry, I should've documented this... For international numbers I think you need "+" at the beginning. Will try to make this smarter in the future.

Andreas

this is good news

Josh Withers

there's currently an instagram account in our business I can't access because Meta can't/won't get a forgot password email to our account. Wtf is going on with email these days, I liked it better with all the spam because at least we got everything, now they're being overprotective and real emails are being quarantined and never to be seen.

Manton Reece

@odd I don't currently have a way to test non-US numbers so to be honest I'm not 100% sure. If you want to try it without signing out, you can open a private browser window.

Manton Reece

@joshua Yes, it's a real problem. Instead of spam filtering in the email client, it's increasingly happening on servers where you have no control over it.

Thomas Brand

@manton dying on the magic link hill?

Manton Reece

@Eggfreckles Yes. And when Passkeys are widespread and well-understood, that should help too.

Thomas Brand

@manton can't wait. I would prefer it or a pre-genersted random password over waiting for an email/sms.

Manton Reece

@otaviocc Yes, support for Passkeys is planned. Maybe around the time iOS 17 / macOS Sonoma ships this year.

Manton Reece

@maique @odd Thanks for trying it. Looks like our SMS account wasn't actually configured yet to send messages everywhere in the world... I'm fixing it now for most of Europe and will continue to tweak as needed.

Ben Southwood.

@maique I had the same issue, though the email did arrive despite the error the text did not.

Manton Reece

@maique Great, thanks!

Matthew Gregg

Glad to see you’re planning Passkey support. Wish it was already available as an option.

Chris Enns

I have no concept of the technical debt involved, but wouldn’t a sign in with GitHub / Google / Apple be a nice alternative? Or does that mean you have to manage user accounts and passwords all the way then?

Manton Reece

@iChris We had Sign in with Apple in the previous iOS app and it will be coming back. Right now I wanted something that would work everywhere, though.

Chris Enns

ahh that’s good enough for me. 😊 I’ll switch to that whenever it comes back. Thanks for responding!

Dr. Adam Procter

there is an sms option! Oh nice

Odd-Egil “Oddzthrash” Auran

Hm, when I try to log on now, it says “Email address not found. Maybe you mistyped it?” In a reddish color box. I’m pretty sure I haven’t changed my address. (I tried several times).

Ben Southwood.

@odd I had the same, but the email did come through eventually.

Manton Reece

@odd Is this after receiving the code? Make sure to click the "Verify" button. I think the return key might not do the right thing sometimes. I'm trying to reproduce that so I can fix it but I haven't seen that error yet.

Odd-Egil “Oddzthrash” Auran

No, it’s when I enter my email address and tapping the button.

Rene van Belzen

You do know why it is flagged as spam, I expect? Most likely because password reset via email can be intercepted. I think sms is even less secure, because it lacks spam filtering, and can also be intercepted by someone in the middle.

Simon Woods

I wonder, given the general — if gradual — shift away from centralised behemoths, there will soon be fertile enough ground for smaller email hosts to appear. It seems like "better spam detection" is inherently good value, and at least an attractive tool for marketing campaigns.

Jefferson Burson

any sense yet for when Sign in with Apple might be added back into the IOS app? thank you!

Manton Reece

@7robots Not too long. Originally slated for the version 3.1 update, but I think we're bumping it to 3.2 so we can get the video and cross-posting features back sooner.

Jon Rozier

I'm sure you're already answered this elsewhere but is there any chance of going back to an email / password + 2FA login workflow?

Manton Reece

@lostinhaste Sorry, very little chance. We will soon have Sign in with Apple and Passkeys, which I think will be a huge help. When Passkeys are more common, going back to passwords will seem weird.

Manton Reece @manton
Lightbox Image