Paypal passkeys in Germany - offered but not supported

I simply changed the user agent for the PayPal site to think I'm an iPhone and was able to add the Passkey in 1Password just fine. I never did add an iCloud Keychain Passkey though.

I ahve a UK PP account and the Passkey options shows up but says is unavailable on this device.

I'm using a MacBook Pro with Google Chrome.

Really annoying integration PP have done.

Only Apple mobile devices are supported by 1Password, as far as I read about it.

Unfortunately not. Only on desktop. Mobile requires iOS 17 (due next month).

So due to the stupid limitation imposed by PayPal (mobile devices only) you can only add a passkey in iCloud Keychain; not in 1Password.

While I don't recommend this, I did find a workaround: if you choose User Agent "Safari -- iOS 16.4 -- iPhone" in Safari's Developer menu on your desktop, PayPal thinks you're on an iPhone and you can use 1Password to create a passkey! Disadvantage: it will list the 1Password passkey as "iOS - iPhone Safari", identical to the passkey actually stored in iCloud Keychain.

PayPal also supports "Google devices", but maybe they mean Android?

They mean Android. However, Passkeys on Android isn't supported by 1Password. Only Apple mobile devices are supported by 1Password, as far as I read about it. For Paypal, I can only create a passkey in the Android native storage (I tried, and that's how it worked out).

But having passkeys on one device but not on the other is like having two keys and two locks for my house at the same door: one sophisticated highly secure key and one ordinary key with ordinary security. I don't see any advantage in using the highly secure lock, if I'm unable to get rid of the ordinary lock.

Passkeys seem to become again an "Apple first" feature.

PayPal also supports "Google devices", but maybe they mean Android?

(Or would they really restrict it to Google only on that platform?)

Anyway, if it doesn't work for all my devices, it's not usable for me, because I cannot rely on it.

After enabling the passkey (in Safari), I can still use password + TOTP in Firefox.

Passkeys seem to become again an "Apple first" feature. Since I don't own an Apple device and never will, I'm out.

I don't understand why the're offering Passkeys on a device they don't support anyway. It makes me never ever look again. Anyway, if it doesn't work for all my devices, it's not usable for me, because I cannot rely on it.

I just disabled the "Check for passkeys" config in 1Password and will ignore Passkeys for the next years until it matured. It seems it's much more difficult to get into production - I give the developers time to do that. But I don't want to be bothered every few weeks with an announcement only to see it's not actually supported for me after all. Despite the announcement.

It's even worse than I thought...

I live in a different country in the EU and much to my surprise I'm also offered to use a passkey (while it's not announced yet for my country).

• I could only set up the passkey in Mobile Safari on iOS, not in (desktop) Safari in macOS Ventura
• After logging in using my passkey, I still have to enter the 6-digit TOTP code...

Stupid limitations by PayPal probably:

Which technology providers support passkeys?
Today passkeys for PayPal are supported by Safari and Chrome web browsers on Apple devices running iOS 16, iPadOS 16, macOS Ventura, and Google devices running Android 9+. Passkeys are not supported on web view browsers and Windows devices. On a Windows device, the user must use a password or SMS OTP to log in.

https://www.paypal.com/us/cshelp/article/what-are-paypal-passkeys-help997

(They have a stupid security key implementation as well: you can add only 1; no backup...)