mdCheckbox has a temporary focus style where a dotted border is shown around the textContent. To follow the Material Design spec more closely, the checkbox should show an ink circle on focus that persists until the element is blurred:

This will make checkboxes labeled with only the aria-label and no textContent show focus. An example requiring this is the list item control by @rschmukler (#985, currently in progress):
<md-list>
<md-list-item>
<p>Subscribe</p>
<md-checkbox aria-label="Subscribe"></md-checkbox>
</md-list-item>
</md-list>
mdCheckbox has a temporary focus style where a dotted border is shown around the textContent. To follow the Material Design spec more closely, the checkbox should show an ink circle on focus that persists until the element is blurred:
This will make checkboxes labeled with only the
aria-labeland no textContent show focus. An example requiring this is the list item control by @rschmukler (#985, currently in progress):