Sunday, June 3, 2018

1Password 7 for Mac

Dave Teare:

While in your browser, mini will automatically suggest the items you’re most likely to need.

And mini doesn’t limit itself to just browsers. With our new app integration we’ll automatically suggest logins for the current app you’re using. Along with support for drag and drop, this is a real game changer.

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You can now give your notes richly formatted text using Markdown!

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It all began by combining 1Password and 1Password mini into a single process. This made items faster to load, reduced memory usage, and decreased launch times.

Jeff Shiner (Hacker News):

To be quite honest, one of the main reasons we haven’t had a paid upgrade on the Mac side for all these years is that we were dreading the pain this would cause us and our customers. However the time has come to bite the bullet and have a paid upgrade.

To avoid this pain in the future, this will be the last time we will be submitting a new app to the App Store. To make that possible, 1Password 7 will only be available as a subscription in the Mac App Store.

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If we were to sell standalone licenses in the Mac App Store we would have these same problems all over again when 1Password 8 is released. Ultimately this is why we decided not to sell licenses through the Mac App Store.

Joe Rossignol:

For those who wish to purchase a license for 1Password 7 for Mac, instead of a subscription, the app must be downloaded directly from the AgileBits website. Licenses are $49.99 for a limited time, and $64.99 after that, and are per-person, per-platform.

I haven’t figured out how to actually pay for the direct version.

Kate Sebald:

1Password 7 from the Mac App Store will only support our hosted service, as that’s what you’re purchasing with a 1Password membership. If you install from our website, you’ll have to option to use a standalone vault synced via iCloud if you purchase a standalone license, or use our hosted service if you purchase a 1Password membership.

I see why they did this, but it does regress the product for me, because now the non-subscription version can’t automatically check for updates if I’m blocking the app’s network connections with Little Snitch. Previously, the App Store could do that on the app’s behalf.

See also: Gabe Weatherhead, David Sparks, Bradley Chambers.

Update (2018-06-05): Jeroen van der Ham:

It took me a long while to figure out how to pay for the direct version of @1Password because it’s not listed anywhere on the website.

What you do is download the app, and then you can select to buy the standalone version in the purchase screen.

10 Comments RSS · Twitter

Agreed, it is confusing how to pay for the direct, non-subscription version. I downloaded the demo and used the in-app store to pay for it.

Overall I really like this version, particularly how 1Password mini doesn't even pretend to be menu-like any more. The biggest regression I've noticed so far is that it's much more difficult to figure out where to drag the 1Password mini window.

Slapping a loyal customer like me with a a 50$ upgrade that ties you into a subscription. To put it nicely, AgileBits, take a hike. Let's hope whatever Starbucks-dwelling Bay Area hipsters you think you're marketing to, are bigger suckers than me.

The audacity of these paid updates nowadays (often for slight quality of life updates and a slight redesign) is just too much for me. I refuse to pay these prices.

@Guy If you do the paid upgrade, you don’t have to subscribe. The last paid upgrade was about 5 years ago, and the app has improved a lot since then.

Bryan Pietrzak

Yeah Guy I'm with Michael on this one - the value is pretty great for what you pay for 1Password (esp imo if you don't go with the subscription route)

I can't really begrudge them charging $50 for the first time in 5 years

1Password is one of the few apps where I had zero issues paying the subscription pricing, and did so right away, simply because their sync service really makes things much easier for me. Even the fact that, when I set up a new computer, I don't have to install Dropbox first, wait for it to sync the 1Password file, then install 1Password, but can just install 1Password right away, and log in by scanning another 1password installation, is a real convenience.

+1 to what @Lukas said. I'm newly converted to the subscription service and am already very happy with it. I wouldn't say setup for the subscription service is easy, but it's easier than with Dropbox. And as a longtime user of the standalone app, over the years I've had to fix Dropbox syncing multiple times for myself and for family members. Different devices at some point stop syncing properly to Dropbox, and merge headaches ensue. Glad not to deal with this anymore.

Also! I'm surprised at how much I've already made use of shared vaults as a means of securely sharing items with family. Not something I thought I needed often, but now I have it it turns out I use it all the time. (I know this was possible with shared Dropbox vaults, but the overhead of setting it up made it impractical.)

In short: no qualms about paying for the subscription (especially the reasonably priced family plan).

Adrian Bengtson

I honestly think they are better of without a customer like "Guy" above.

Complaining about the first paid upgrade in five years and dismissing all the actual improvements as "slight quality of life updates and a slight redesign" is just borderline offensive. Add to that the incorrect claim about "a 50$ upgrade that ties you into a subscription".

Yeah, I'm wrong and the company is better off without me. A great message to send to long-time customers... whatever. I'm clearly not the only one sharing this opinion, check out other forums, you'll see it echoed a lot. If you want to pay exorbitant upgrade prices, that's absolutely your choice. There's no need to be smug about it.

For what it's worth I've been using KeePass-XC for several months even before 1Password 7 was announced. It's not that much worse of an experience, it's free, it's multiplatform, and I don't have to trust AgileBits with my data. Which unlike most software companies, I do - but with such personal data, you just can't know (certainly for companies who have operations in the USA).

@Guy 1Password is based in Canada.

I'm curious, as someone who knows nothing about KeePass, what makes them trustworthy? When I hear "free" and "password manager" I get suspicious, but I've never looked into them.

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