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Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

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Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

when utility or productivity tools are offered at a fairly steep price point as 1password was people usually have a reasonable expectation to receive long-term upgrades. It's not ridiculous at all because it generally is the norm.

I spent around 45-50 dollars in 2013 for the Windows+Mac Bundle and iOS apps. 1Password 7 is the first paid in my experience using the software, which is vital to me every day. Roughly 10 dollars a year for a critical utility software isn't "fairly steep," and I also fail to understand how so many years of free updates imply any type of "reasonable" expectation of long term updates.

it's pretty steep in comparison to the alternatives in the market. What does 1password offer that the free version of lastpass does not?

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For customers there are 0 benefits to a subscription model. For companies of course there are many. OP described in detail the benefit for customers--constantly updated software. Critical for something as security conscience as a password manager.

People updated software before they started using subscription models. Paying for software meant they had to make more compelling updates.

You need software companies to provide you with security updates for their products. Insisting that you won’t pay for security updates without new features or that security updates should be offered gratis won’t lead to quality software - it just leads to feature bloat. Attaching a separate price to security updates aligns your needs with a software company’s incentives. Why is that a bad thing in your view?

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People updated software before they started using subscription models. Paying for software meant they had to make more compelling updates.

You need software companies to provide you with security updates for their products. Insisting that you won’t pay for security updates without new features or that security updates should be offered gratis won’t lead to quality software - it just leads to feature bloat. Attaching a separate price to security updates aligns your needs with a software company’s incentives. Why is that a bad thing in your view?

If you are paying for a subscription there isn’t necessarily an incentive to provide security updates even more, since they have the functionality of your app hostage if you decide to cancel and the automatic monthly billing has no ties to the quantity or wuality of updates they push out.

That being said, security updates shouldbe part of the price you already paid, since a security flaw is a flaw in their original software.

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#234
post #115

Why are people so vehemently opposed to the 1PW cloud sync service? For unenrypted data, I completely understand this. And in general, it's great to have the option to sync using whatever service you want. But the data that 1PW stores is encrypted up the wazoo and AB couldn't extract your passwords from it even if they wanted to. In their security document they even outline how useless it would be for a bad actor to…

I’d rather control the data myself. I view cloud hosted password providers as huge attack targets and they generally get hacked eventually (roboform, lastpass,etc). At least if you control where the data is stored your data can be kept off the radar so to speak.

As far as I remember nobody really had any problems after the LastPass hack, since the data was encrypted anyway?

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People updated software before they started using subscription models. Paying for software meant they had to make more compelling updates.

True in the traditional model. But the Mac App Store model doesn’t have paid upgrades, which meant there was no incentive for them to keep updating. With a subscription system, there’s (theoretically at least) the possibility that customers would jump ship if they feel the developers aren’t pulling their weight.

Lucky for MacOS users we don’t have to use it like iOS users on the iOS app store.

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#236
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there's a huge difference between supporting the version that they sold you for a specific version of ios and writing a new version to work with future changes to ios (which they don't in any way control)

Not really. As an iOS user I am forced to update the os for software to be supported and receive new security updates. That Apple makes previous versions of my installed software incompatible when I do upgrade should not be my problem. (That said, I agree there is a problem here, and I think Apple should ultimately be the one who fixes it)

No, they shouldn't, they should throw away legacy code as they've been doing ever since.

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you feel like you underpaid. Then the solution is for them to charge more or charge for more of their products, not a subscription. A subscription basically forces you into paying for upgrades. The only thing a subscription model is good for is it wrestes power from the consumer. With the traditional model if they decide to stop updating the app, you wouldn’t buy the next version, and that would be you…

Here's a counterpoint: If someone pays $40 for, say, 1Password 5, they have no incentive to upgrade. It works well enough, and there's no reason to pay again. So, 1Password is stuck supporting a legacy product (and servers / APIs for it), the user is frustrated by an old version of the software, and the company gets no money so they're at risk of folding (which would hurt both the customer and 1Password). I agree tha…

If they have no incentive to upgrade, that's because the newer versions don't add any value for the user. This makes sense: 1Password is a pretty mature product at this point and there probably isn't much room to add new features, unless you want to expand the scope of the product.

That is to say that I personally (and again, this is just my opinion) don't care about any new features and would be unlikely to upgrade from version 6 on that basis. I may upgrade to ensure I will continue receiving security updates and OS and browser extension compatibility updates, but it would be nice to know how long such updates to version 7 are guaranteed for (presumably they will eventually release version 8 for a new fee and discontinue such updates to version 7).

> (and servers / APIs for it)

The users (like me) who are against subscriptions are only using local vaults (managing the storage sync ourselves) and do not care for or want the web/sync services.

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#238

I never liked 1pass. I don't like the fact that you have to install a desktop app to use the browser extension. Also the UI is a bit annoying and sometimes it feels like it just gets in my way. The UX for multiple vaults is not so obvious at times and you don't realize you are only searching one vault instead of everything. Copying and sharing between vaults is also annoying. I really don't see what 1pass does better…

1password seems to have better apps and is supported by multiple apps on iOS.

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you feel like you underpaid. Then the solution is for them to charge more or charge for more of their products, not a subscription. A subscription basically forces you into paying for upgrades. The only thing a subscription model is good for is it wrestes power from the consumer. With the traditional model if they decide to stop updating the app, you wouldn’t buy the next version, and that would be you…

Here's a counterpoint: If someone pays $40 for, say, 1Password 5, they have no incentive to upgrade. It works well enough, and there's no reason to pay again. So, 1Password is stuck supporting a legacy product (and servers / APIs for it), the user is frustrated by an old version of the software, and the company gets no money so they're at risk of folding (which would hurt both the customer and 1Password). I agree tha…

They should not be supporting new features on old versions, and 1Password does not require servers or APIs. If you are paying for their cloud hosting then that is a justifiable subscription cost, but I’m already use Dropbox.

They should be supporting security updates and this should be built into their costs. Security updates represent flaws in their product.

If the user is frustrated by an old oversion and looks to upgrade (whether to a competitor or a new version), then that makes upgrading justified, transparent, and intentional.

Their subscription model just serves to make upgrading less intentional, less transparent, and takes away power from the consumer. Also at their current pricing it’s a massive increase in cost without really deliverying much more value. You’re paying more than what it normally costs in a year, to only be able to use it for a year. It’s like forcing me to pay for their product on an installment plan, but I don’t rven get to keep using it in the end.

Whatever benefits they claim a subscription provides can also be achieved by having more frequent, smaller, incremental updates for features you can pay for.

Re: Getting 1Password 7 ready for the Mac App Store

#240
post #87

Stupid question: what does this do that iCloud Keychain doesn’t do?

iCloud Keychain is pretty good, but it tragically fails in the followings cases: * Any browser other than Safari. * Apps that MacOS/iOS don't parse for password fields for some reasons so you can't generate a password right there — and it's a huge pain to add them manually, practically impossible on iOS. * Cloud access (if you need your account and don't have any of your devices). Your Keychain is in the iCloud, but you can't access it from icloud.com

So Apple could easily make it much better but they haven't.

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