PassGenR (short for PasswordGeneratoR) is my first iPhone App – and it was my first Newton App as well.

This App was actually born from a request that came on the NewtonTalk mailing list. Network or System administrators frequently need to set up accounts and issue user ids and passwords.  The best passwords are truly random — but coming up with a completely random password off the top of your head can be a bother – particularily for those with a logical way of thinking.

So PassGenR allows the rapid creation of truly random passwords.  The parameters allow the password length to be pre-determined, along with what types of characters are to be included (upper, lower case, numbers, punctuation marks).

Finally, a ‘seed’ may be specified.  Without a seed, the generated passwords are truly random, but with a ‘seed’ you can get a pseudo-random password that can be recreated later.  With a given seed text and the same set of password parameters, a password can be recreated.  Note, this is somewhat less secure than a truly random password, but it can have uses.  For instance, a specified seed could be useful for a person who frequently forgets their password – instead of using something common and easily-remembered (and therefore easily hacked) for their password, they could use that as their seed text; PassGenR will convert that into a random string of characters.  If they subsequently forget the random password, they can use PassGenR along with their easily-remembered seed, to reconstruct their password.

PassGenR remembers all settings between uses, so you only need to configure your prefered settings once. (Seed text is not saved, of course.)  The last-five generated passwords are also stored on the History page.

Use is very simple – set the password length using the slider, select which character-types you want to include using the toggle switches, (optionally, enter a seed string) then tap the Generate button.  That’s all there is to it!

If you want to clear the screen without exiting the App, just give your iPhone a quick shake and the generated password (and seed text) will be cleared.  (To clear history, go to the View History page then tap the Clear History button.)

PassGenR is available now at the iTunes App Store.

It is available for free.