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Posts tagged with "1password"

1Password Adds Subscription Plan for Individuals

Last year, Agile Bits debuted a 1Password subscription plan for teams, which was followed by a family plan in February. So it only seems natural that today, Agile Bits added a subscription plan for individuals. Dave Teare, Agile Bits’ founder, writing on the company’s blog, lays out the unique features of the $2.99/month subscription:

Our new individual hosted service comes with everything you expect from 1Password, along with these new features:

  • Built-in automatic sync across all devices
  • Data loss protection
  • Web access to your data on 1Password.com
  • Item History for restoring deleted or changed items
  • Secure Document storage
  • Brand new multi-factor security model

In addition, an individual subscription includes 1Password on all platforms (even Android and Windows) and any updates during your subscription period at no additional cost. The main difference between the individual subscription and a family plan is that the individual plan does not include password and document sharing, permission controls, or account recovery for someone who gets locked out of their account.

Although Agile Bits now has three separate 1Password subscription plans, you can still license a copy of each app without signing up for a subscription if you prefer. The Mac app will remain $64.99 and the In-App Purchase that unlocks the Pro features of 1Password for iOS will remain $9.99. If you do decide to sign up for the individual subscription and do so before September 21st, 2016, you get the first six months free.

Agile Bits’ new subscription strikes a good balance. A 1Password.com account is backed by some serious encryption, but even so, not everyone wants to, or can, use a cloud-based sync solution for sensitive data like passwords, so it’s nice to see that you can still be license the apps separately. At roughly $36/year, an individual subscription is a good deal relative to the cost of licensing the apps separately, especially after you account for the unique features the subscription provides, and the fact that the first six months are free if you sign up before September 21st.

App subscriptions are becoming a popular business model because they ensure recurring revenue that helps developers continue to maintain the apps they sell. As a longtime user and fan of 1Password, I’m glad to see Agile Bits moving to what I hope will sustain 1Password over the long term. I’m also happy to see that in implementing a subscription model, Agile Bits has not done so at the expense of providing its customers with choice and a great value. If you are not already using 1Password, I highly recommend you give it a try.


AgileBits Launches 1Password for Families

Dave Teare, writing on the AgileBits blog about the latest addition to 1Password – a way to share 1Password securely with your family:

1Password for Families builds on our new Teams infrastructure to give you everything you need to protect your loved ones. And it’s only $5 a month for your family of 5.

It’s never been easier to share 1Password with your whole family. There’s no sync service to set up, vaults appear automatically, and there’s an Admin Console where you can invite people and manage sharing with your family.

Every family member gets their own copy of 1Password, and their own personal space to store private information. With this, you can give them the tools they need to stay safe without taking away their independence.

The service costs $5/month and it comes with the full suite of 1Password apps for every platform. It also offers 1 GB of document storage for attachments (2 GB if you’re already a 1Password user and sign up before March 21), and the interface to manage access and review permissions looks polished and friendly. I should seriously consider this so my parents can stop calling me about their forgotten passwords (I love them, but they’re terrible with online accounts).

You can read more and sign up for 1Password for Families here.

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AgileCloudKit and 1Password 6 for Mac

Nice (and free) update to 1Password for Mac released today:

It’s a new year and we’re starting things off on a strong note with a great new update to 1Password for Mac: Version 6.0! This latest version of everyone’s favorite password manager is looking better than ever, and we couldn’t have done it without you. Your awesome feature requests, suggestions, bug reports, and usage scenarios really helped us decide what to include in this release.

If you use multiple vaults, you may want to check out the new functionalities in 1Password 6.0 (release notes here). I don’t, but I may reconsider this to set up vaults for my family and MacStories.

Also of note: AgileBits built a framework to use CloudKit JS for the version of the app sold outside of the Mac App Store. Apps that aren’t available on the App Store can’t implement iCloud support natively, but AgileBits figured out a way to use CloudKit technologies for web apps in their Mac client:

From our customers’ point of view, iCloud Sync in the AgileBits Store version of 1Password will look a little bit different during the initial setup. CloudKit JS does not use the iCloud settings from OS X, so to authenticate with Apple, 1Password will prompt you to log in to your iCloud account by displaying the iCloud login page in your default web browser. Once you have logged in to your iCloud account, CloudKit web services sends an authentication token back to 1Password, which it then stores (securely, of course). This enables 1Password to sync with iCloud without having to reauthenticate each time. Since the iCloud login for CloudKit JS is completely separate from the iCloud settings in OS X System Preferences, you can even use a completely different iCloud account if you like!

I don’t know whether I should be impressed that AgileBits created this workaround or sad about Apple’s decision to restrict iCloud to the semi-abandoned Mac App Store (maybe a bit of both). AgileBits plans to make AgileCloudKit open source, too.

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AgileBits Announces 1Password for Teams

AgileBits yesterday announced 1Password for Teams:

1Password for Teams allows you to share the convenience and security of 1Password with everyone in your life. It gives you the tools you need to control and manage access to your most important information.

New to 1Password for Teams is the Admin Console, a central location to manage your team, vaults and items. The Admin Console makes teamwork a breeze and it completely changes the way you use 1Password in a group environment. It’s packed with features you’ve been asking for, and several new ones you didn’t know you needed :)

Agile Bits is currently accepting sign ups for the 1Password for Teams beta, which will run for the next couple of months. 1Password for Teams is free during the beta period, but when it launches it will cost $4.99 per user per month (which will include licences for all of the native 1Password apps).

I’ve been using 1Password for years and this seems like a fantastic product for any business or team that needs to share logins between users. Just the ability to easily control who has access to which passwords and easily remove access to employees who leave the company will be invaluable. You can view all of the features of 1Password for Teams here.

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1Password’s App Extension and Time-Based, One-Time Passwords

I had no idea developers could use the 1Password iOS extension to prefill one-time passwords in addition to regular usernames and passwords in their apps:

Did you know that our App Extension API supports one-time passwords? In fact, it’s been there since version 1.5 of the API. If you haven’t already, I recommend that you upgrade to the latest version, 1.6.1. Not only can your users fill their usernames and passwords in your app with a few simple taps, their one-time passwords can be filled just as easily.

I use the 1Password extension every day (it has strong app support at this point), but I’ve never come across apps that supported one-time passwords as well. Speaking of which, it’s always a good time to switch from Google Authenticator or Authy to 1Password.

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1Password 6.0 for iOS 9 Adds iPad Multitasking, Spotlight Search

Terrific update to 1Password for iOS released today: version 6.0 adds iPad multitasking support so you can manage your 1Password in other apps, plus a refreshed design, a new Diceware password generator, and Spotlight search.

Besides Slide Over and Split View, I’m excited about the ability to find 1Password items directly from iOS search thanks to CoreSpotlight indexing. Once enabled in Settings > General, 1Password search will let you look up logins, notes, and other items by searching for their title. iOS search will show a 1Password icon for these results, vault information, and it’ll let you tap an item to open it in 1Password.

I search for logins and secure notes in 1Password every day. The ‘Favorites’ shortcut and last year’s action extension helped in getting to often-used items more quickly, but I still do quite a bit of manual search in my vault on a daily basis. Being able to easily search for 1Password content shows why local app search in iOS 9 will change how we navigate and launch apps, and it’s a clever addition by AgileBits.

1Password 6.0 is available on the App Store.


1Password 5.5 Brings UI Tweaks and Improvements to Touch ID, Apple Watch App, and Security

Released today on the App Store, the latest update to our favorite password manager brings some nice minor adjustments. Most of the changes improve the flow and ease of use of the app, and while there aren’t any game changers here, numerous tiny annoyances that have been frustrating me for a while have been wiped out.

The first feature mentioned in the release notes is the ability to switch between multiple vaults with only two taps using their new vault switcher. I personally only use one vault with 1Password so I don’t have much to say here, but I’m always a fan of doing things in fewer taps so this feature gets a thumbs up from me.

My favorite changes have to do with Touch ID and security tweaks. There have been quite a few times when I’ve accidentally canceled the Touch ID dialogue, and until now that meant that I was then required to type my password back in before the app would unlock. With version 5.5, there is now a very nice looking fingerprint button that will show up beneath the password input box. If you accidentally cancel Touch ID before unlocking the app, you can now tap the fingerprint button to bring the Touch ID prompt back up and unlock without typing. The feature of course still respects your Touch ID timeout settings, so if you’re trying to unlock when Touch ID has been disabled until the next time your password is typed, tapping the fingerprint button won’t do anything.

Next on security, in regard to the 1Password extension, the extension and the main 1Password app now share unlock settings. This means that if you unlock the app, the extension is unlocked, and vice versa. If you, like me, have experienced typing your password into the extension (which should then enable Touch ID) and then going to the main app and discovering that you now need to type the password again, then you’ll be happy about this feature as well. Timeout settings are still respected on the extension as well, also of course.

Another small but appreciated security improvement: if you fill your login credentials on an unsecured website (think http://) when the saved URL for the login is secure (think https://), 1Password will warn you that this is about to happen. This is one of those features that you hope you would never need anyway but if you do it could save you a lot of trouble.

Finally, among some other various and very minor changes, the Apple Watch app has been updated to allow you to see the PIN numbers on your credit card entries. Convenient if you’re into that sort of thing.

Overall, 1Password 5.5 is a solid update. Mostly polish, but polishing shiny things just makes them shinier, and who doesn’t like that? If you don’t have 1Password yet then I’m not sure why you read all of this, but you can find it in the App Store, and you should go buy it right now.


1Password for Apple Watch Released

With an update to their iOS app released today, AgileBits has officially introduced 1Password for Apple Watch, which users will be able to install once the Watch launches this month.

On the Watch, 1Password will enable the creation of “bookmarks” to pin important information to the Watch app, where it’ll be easily accessible. From their blog post, an example:

After a couple months of diligently attending the gym, you’ve earned a coveted private locker. Of course, remembering your locker combination is probably not a priority when you’re counting reps. But if you store that combination in 1Password, it only takes a couple of taps for you to see the combination in 1Password for Apple Watch when you’re back at your locker.

Also interesting: AgileBits made the Apple Watch app a Pro feature, which can be unlocked through 1Password’s $9.99 In-App Purchase. I wonder if more developers will follow this route and try to monetize Watch apps as extra features of iPhone apps with IAPs.

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