Google Makes Phone Logins Easier With Personal Login Feature For Android L

Google showed off a few new features of the next version of Android. While the company didn’t say all that much about the new features and instead focused on the new design language, Google director of engineering Dave Burke did show off Android’s new personal login feature.

Instead of having to use a pattern or PIN to log in, the phone will now know whether it is in a trusted environment. It’ll look for your smartwatch, for example, or your home Wi-Fi network. If it sees those, it won’t ask you to authenticate and just give you a basic lock screen instead. If you’re somewhere new — or you’re not wearing your smartwatch — it will still ask you for you lock-screen pattern.

With this, Google is obviously playing on Apple’s built-in fingerprint scanner on the iPhone.