See md-chips autocomplete example with additional readonly checkbox and autocomplete with md-floating-label instead of placeholder:
http://codepen.io/anon/pen/NNqzQV
There are several issues present:
Floating labels should always be visible in my opinion, most of the time there are more than just one input field present in a form which leads to confusion if some inputs have no label.
Possibly related to #3200
This issue is closed as part of our 鈥楽urge Focus on Material 2' efforts.
For details, see our forum posting @ http://bit.ly/1UhZyWs.
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