Switchers' Blog

1Password 3 Feature Spotlight: iPhone sync

Let's be honest here: syncing 1Password with 1Password touch on your iPhone or iPod touch is pretty awesome. It's easy to set up, secure, and hella fast. In fact, you may be wondering whether it's possible to top our sync features in 1Password 3. With this post, I am happy to confirm that it is most certainly possible. But first, a little background.

When we released 1Password touch 2.0 earlier this year, we completely redesigned our Wi-Fi sync feature for iPhone and iPod touch. We greatly simplified the setup process and made it automatic, so anytime your Mac and iPhone are on the same network and you unlock 1Password touch on your device, a sync occurs without you needing to lift a finger.

Now in 1Password 3, you can lift a finger, if you want. Drawing some inspiration from iTunes, we built an entirely new syncing dashboard to give you more control over your device and what you sync. Setup is still super-simple, and by default, 1Password will automatically sync all of your Logins, Secure Notes, Wallet Items, and Software Licenses, as well as any folders that you organize them with.

But what if you want to bring along only your work Logins, or your banking Logins? Now you can create a couple of folders in 1Password, organize your 1Password items in any way you want, and then select only those folders in our new iPhone sync dashboard. 1Password touch will sync just the items in those folders with 1Password on your Mac, allowing you to scale back to the bare essentials when you want. In fact, 1Password touch Pro will even organize items on your device according to the 1Password folders folders on your Mac as well, keeping you even more organized while on-the-go.

Of course, what would a redesigned iPhone sync dashboard be without a "replace everything on my device" option? If you ever need to start from scratch on your iPhone or iPod touch, or you just want to do some house cleaning, you can now easily perform a clean sync and replace everything on the device with your 1Password items and folders.

But wait, there will be more

Now we've heard that at least one or two of you would like to be able to sync 1Password touch on your i-device over the Internet, without having to be in the same room, or perhaps even the same country, as your Mac. On this topic I have good news and not-really-bad news and will, overall, add up to a smile on your face.

The good news is that we're working really hard on a way to sync through "the cloud" using MobileMe or any standard WebDAV server. This means that MobileMe customers will be able to enjoy an effortless sync setup, and other users with their own compatible web hosts can get their advanced geekery on.

The not-really-bad news is that this sync won't arrive with 1Password 3.0. This feature will take some time, and we have more work to do on the Agile Keychain and 1Password for both platforms in order to provide the awesome experience our users have come to expect. Instead of making a promise on this feature's availability that we might not meet, I'll just say it's "coming soon." It will be released in a free 3.x upgrade, and that's about all we can talk about for now.

This about covers the new iPhone sync features in 1Password 3. Be sure to look back through our 1Password 3 Feature Spotlight series to see in-depth looks at other major features that are on their way, and stay tuned here on the blog for future posts as well.

1Password touch 2.0 brings new Wi-Fi Sync

It's time to check your App Store updates, because 1Password touch 2.0 is here! This is the biggest update we've made since the 1.0 release in July 2008, and we've added some great new features for you.

First, you can now edit and sync Wallet items like credit card numbers and software licenses with your iPhone or iPod touch (1Password 2.9.16 or greater on the Mac is required). In order to improve reliability, enable new features, and pave the way for new features in 1Password 3.0, we also added a brand new Wi-Fi Sync system. The new WiFi Sync greatly simplifies the setup process with your iPhone or iPod touch, and it adds the perk of being completely automatic. Anytime 1Password on your Mac and 1Password touch 2.0 on your device are connected to the same Wi-Fi network, they will automatically sync all of your Logins, Secure Notes, and Wallet items so you never leave home without them. Because of this convenience, we have removed the old "iPhone Sync" menu from 1Password's Sync menu with a recent 1Password 2.9.17 update. Run "Check for Updates" from 1Password's application menu to grab the new version.

To demonstrate how easy it is to get the new Wi-Fi Sync feature set up, I created a short two-minute screencast, which is embedded below:

Give this a spin or check out our official Wi-Fi Sync Guide page on how to get started if documentation is more your thing.

Master Password Required For Upgrade

After installing 1Password touch 2.0, you will need to provide your Master Password so we can migrate your data into the new format required by 2.0. Put another way:

If you do not know your Master Password, DO NOT UPGRADE yet.

We have a forum post that covers your options for upgrading to 1Password touch 2.0 if you have forgotten your Master Password.

The new Agile Keychain format

In order for the new Wi-Fi Sync feature to be all it can be and sync your stuff with 1Password touch 2.0, we now require users to switch to the new Agile Keychain format. If you are not ready to switch from the Mac OS X keychain, you can continue to use 1Password 2.9.15 on the Mac (available from our version hisory page) and 1Password touch 1.4 on your device (just remember to not update to the new 2.0 version) for the near future. If you are not syncing with a device at all, you can continue to use the Mac OS X keychain format until 1Password 3.0 (more on that in a minute).

There are a number of reasons why the Agile Keychain is the wave of 1Password's future, so I'll explain a few:

• Reliability - As some of our customers know, making the Mac OS X keychain bend and stretch to 1Password's needs can sometimes be problematic. Apple designed its keychain so that many applications can store one or two items, and it's great for that. But over the years, we have learned that 1Password users need something a little more robust (fun fact: the average 1Password customer stores around 300 items in a keychain). These differences in the fundamental design approaches between the Mac OS X keychain and 1Password cause a lot of our problems. Further, when we analyze a log of something gone wrong, it contains cryptic error messages that speak more to Apple's engineers than ours.

  The new Agile Keychain format is designed from the ground up with security, extensibility, and the ability to store hundreds, or even thousands, of items in mind. It's optimized for syncing encrypted data not only between multiple computers, but portable devices like the iPhone, iPod touch, and Palm OS 4 handhelds. You can even keep 1Password open on two Macs, and if you're using a service like Dropbox to sync your Agile Keychain, you can create new items from either copy and they will appear almost instantly in both.

  These and other features are difficult to run (reliably) on the Mac OS X keychain, which is one key reason why we're transitioning to our new Agile Keychain. But more importantly, an in-house keychain format allows our developers to control and optimize 1Password much faster. It also gives our support reps a much better glimpse into problems when they happen.

• Supporting our users - I've listed just a couple of the problems that we run into when creating newer, better versions of 1Password that have to support the Mac OS X keychain. But really, you're the ones who run into the problems; we're just here to help.

  The fact is, our users are the ones who suffer the most when our software has to support a keychain format that was never intended for the greatness of 1Password. Switching to the new Agile Keychain format will cause fewer problems and make it much, much easier for us to build a better 1Password for you. Don't get me wrong: Agile Web Solutions is a firm believer that behind every great product is equally great customer support. We love helping our customers, but we also love to make software faster, better, and just plain cooler. The new Agile Keychain format solves as many problems for our customers as it does for us, and it fits much better into 1Password's future.

• New 1Password 3.0 features - No, I can't spill any specific beans here just yet. But 1Password 3.0 is going to bring some great new features that Apple's keychain is simply not designed to support. You won't be disappointed, so stay tuned for more details on these soon.

We hope you really like 1Password touch 2.0. As always, we love to hear your feedback in the 1Password touch for iPhone and iPod touch forums.

David Chartier
Chief Media Producer

dotMac Syncing Howto: Forcing Keychains to Sync

.Mac is fickle sometimes. In just this week alone we've had 3 customers report problems syncing their keychain with .Mac accounts. So, I thought I'd share a little tutorial on the first step I always try when .Mac gets out-of-sync: Manually reset your .Mac keychain data with the correct data.

When .Mac refuses to sync, sometimes it just needs a little coaxing. The following steps will force .Mac to update its data to keychain from your one Mac and force .Mac to update the keychains on your other Mac.

As always, the first step before any change is to backup your information. The keychains are stored in this folder:

/Users/your-user-id/Library/Keychains

Back that folder up on both your machines.