One surprising “feature”, for me, about the iPhone is that a password character is visibly displayed for a short amount of time before being hidden. The motivation behind this feature being that people are less used to typing passwords into mobile touchscreen devices. And since these passwords need to be 100% accurate (and there’s no nifty iOS auto-correct to save the day), the user is given assistance by showing, for a brief period of time, what they typed in. 

Here’s an example:

I understand the motivation behind this functionality. What I don’t get is why there isn’t an option in the user settings in order to override this type of behavior. If I am willing to forego the extra added convenience of being able to type in the password and willing to trade it for the extra added security for someone looking over my shoulder, why shouldn’t I have this choice? 

The funny thing is that Apple itself doesn’t follow this pattern with respect to the iPhone unlock view. The numerical inputs are always hidden and never briefly lag on the screen for anyone to see: