Signing on to Apple

In the latest update for Apple TV, Netflix introduced a way to sign up using just your Apple ID. This could be a very important experiment because it indicates that Apple is interested in offering single sign-on to other developers as well. In fact, Apple is already offering a primitive form of single sign-on to games who integrate Game Center.

If this functionality were offered to all developers on a wider basis, it would be the ultimate lock-in tool for the platform as users realize they can’t easily port over to other platforms.

I would be surprised if Google is not thinking about this same thing on Android in connection with Google Plus, especially given that Facebook is almost certainly going to be launching their phone with this functionality baked in later this year.