15 minutes of use - some feedback
I've installed the new Mac version of 1Password 8 on Monterey on a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2018) - 2.6 GHz 6-Core Intel Core i7 + 16 GB 2400 MHz DDR4, and some initial feedback:
Performance:
It feels really sluggish. Every UI interaction feels stuttery in a way that 1Password 7 did not - and this is on a mac that is pretty idle - just running 1Password 8 and Safari. Scrolling has noticeable visual stutter instead of being perfectly smooth like 1Password 7 was.
Quick Access vs 1Password Mini:
No matter how I look at it, Quick Access is just worse than 1Password Mini right now. I can't see a single way the current UI is an improvement, and lots of ways that it is worse - there's a lot of work to do here before it's a reasonable replacement. The current Quick Access alone would make me want to not upgrade from 1Password 7 - 1Password Mini the single best part of the current Mac app for me, and the bit I use the most by far.
Quick Access changes focus unpredictably - if I have Safari full screen, and open Quick Access, it moves focus to the space with my 1Password 8 window open. 1Password Mini just floated over the top of whatever I was currently looking at.
The preview of search results in Quick Access is pretty awful - it shows next to nothing about the item but the title, and maybe a cut off username/email address. Compared to 1password mini where I could with one further click easily see the full details in the same view, this is a big step back. It means I have to go to full 1password much more often, and I don't consider that a good thing. It means that 1password gets 'in my way' a lot more than before.
When I actually copy, it shows the status message for this in the main window? That's just weird.
Main application:
Visually, nothing looks right. It feels like someone has tried to vaguely approximate the Mac look and feel from scratch and it just feels jarring compared to 1Password 7.
The font and spacing you're using for 'Show in Large Type' is considerably harder to read for me than it was before - 1Password 7 has clearer, bolder text - without a large amount of artificial spacing between letters. The alternating colour background is considerably easier for me to follow than the large spacing. I'm not sure, but it looks like the alternate colour background is less different from the white now too.
Categories are gone from the sidebar, and instead you have to use a dropdown to pick them. At first I didn't even see this dropdown.
There's no reused password warning yet?
Big issue for me - there's no longer any way to do local vaults. I use the subscription service for some passwords, and for some I store them locally. This has been foreshadowed for a long time, but it doesn't make me any happier about it. If the self-hosting survey that went out results in us being able to self host vaults at no extra licensing cost, then that mitigates this.
Conclusion
Right now though, 1Password 8 is a significant step backwards for me - it looks like it runs worse (at least visually!), it looks wrong on a Mac, Quick Access is really poor compared to 1Password Mini. Losing the ability to store some very sensitive information locally is a big minus too.
A lot of the interface now requires extra clicks to get around, or to show information / controls that were previously immediately visible. This isn't good either.
I know it's an early pre-release, and that's very obvious from using it - but I feel that it needs some significant design changes to replace 1Password 7. If this upgrade is pushed on me without significant improvement, then it will stop me using 1Password going forward.
I will keep using it on one machine though, so I can get more use and see if it improves.
Also, the sign up for the forum is a bit wacky: you register, and it sends the confirmation email. It then shows you a "You don't have permission to do that" screen.
1Password Version: 1Password for Mac 8.2.0-44.BETA
Extension Version: 2.0.6
OS Version: macOS 12.0 Beta (21A5304g)
Comments
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Extra point: it feels like Quick Access is no longer aware of what app you were using before you opened it. Before, that meant that 1Password Mini could show you passwords for that app - eg Slack passwords for Slack, or passwords I created while using Terminal if I'm using Terminal.
Losing that is a big step backwards for UX.
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Another point, been using it a little more during the day.
Be consistent with your popup windows. Half of them are modal dialogs with your own custom chrome, half of them are real separate macOS windows. The second is better in my opinion, because they act like people expect windows to act on each platform - they have the right buttons in the right places in the title bars that way, etc.
In general, this version moves away from using controls that feel like native macOS controls. This feels like an app that can't decide what platform it's for - presumably because it's basically the same app + UI on all platforms with a few per platform tweaks. That's bad - one of the biggest reasons I liked 1Password was that it felt like a Mac app because it was a Mac app.
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@tomjepp I agree with you on every word you have posted. Thank you, you saved me from posting mine.
I tried out 1Password 8 and nothing was intuitive anymore.
- Click 1Password in the menu bar and now you have to make a choice instead of just getting access to your data.
- Close 1Password from the File menu and the app quits completely. You have to use the traffic lights to close it. Then, you have to remove the icon manually from the Dock.
Lot of other things, you mentioned aptly. It is a mess as it is today, and has forced me to look at Bitwarden and Enpass for cross-platform password managers.
I am a subscriber too, with 6 or so months left in the subscription. I would not renew if this goes ahead in its current form. It is unusable.
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Another issue:
When I find an item in the list in the main application and move it to another vault, it snaps me back to the top of the list. Really irritating.
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When I have 1Password full screen and open an item in a new window I get no visible title bar and buttons when I mouse to the top of the screen.
Means that the only way to close that window is to Cmd+W,
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The add new item window appears as an in-app modal window, not a real window. This isn't great because I do actually want to copy content or check other items while using it, and this no longer lets me do that.
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It's depressing that they took what was a great native Mac app and turned it into an Electron garbage-fire. If this goes ahead I will likely look elsewhere too.
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Navigating quick access is a really weird experience, and the only ways I have discovered how to do so for now have been via random experimentation with random button pressing.
For example, I search for an item, and select it. That takes me to this screen:
From this screen, there's no actual clickable way to return to the search list and using the search box now does nothing in terms of updating the UI - but it does search behind the scenes if you search for something new and press enter it will open the first result for that invisible search. The only way to get back to the search list is to press left - and I only discovered I could do that by accident.
This feels especially weird to me as you've essentially rebuilt 1Password Mini for the browser extension already:
This version is vastly easier for me to use - I can get a list of search results and the details of those results in one view that looks a lot more like the main app - including the ability to edit.
I get the idea of making Quick Access primarily keyboard navigable, but I really question how many users actually do this, and I feel it comes at the expense of usability. It's a very different interface to the one you currently ship with 7, it's vastly different to any other part of the app, and the Mac is typically a very mouse-centric platform. At the moment in quick access there are actions (like returning to the search results list) that are only possible using a keyboard, and that just feels wrong.
Additionally I don't feel there's any reason why you you couldn't also make the browser extension style window more keyboard navigable too - even with a lot of the same keyboard bindings and it'd be a lot more visually obvious - eg with the list side-by-side with the details of a result, the idea of pressing left to return to the list is much more obvious than it is presently with Quick Access.
As an example, using Quick Access:
It makes it really difficult to use in particular when I'm focussing on another app - say for example I have a terminal up, and I want to enter some credentials. Let's say there's three pieces to these credentials - a username, a password and a 2FA token.
At the moment, I have my terminal full screen, and I hit the 1Password icon.
That gives me a menu, and I select Quick Access.
Selecting Quick Access moves focus to the virtual desktop with the main 1Password app on, or if it's not open then the primary desktop.
That removes me from my app, so I can no longer see what field I'm looking for easily.
I then either open the item in it's own separate window - which is still on the wrong desktop, or I copy a field.
I then return to my terminal and paste the field I've selected. I might have my terminal open three virtual desktops away from the primary, so getting back to it isn't necessarily as quick as one swipe.
I then have to repeat this flow for each field, and every time it takes me away from the app I'm currently looking at.
In 1Password Mini, that's a much simpler flow:
I hit 1Password icon and Mini opens immediately. It already has context so it shows me things I've saved or passwords I've generated from the terminal before. Most importantly I can still see the terminal, so it's easy to remember exactly what credentials I want.
I do a search for my credentials and copy the first field. I might pin the window open if I know I want to copy lots of fields. This still floats on top of the existing app I'm working with, so it doesn't take my focus away - it's quick to copy each individual field into the app.
Once I'm done, that's it - I might have to close a pinned window, but I don't have to remember anything extra to get back to the search results next time.
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I wrote a long post here comparing Quick Access to 1Password Mini with an actual example of the UIs and the flows involved and it seems to have disappeared?
That's frustrating, as I put a fair bit of time into writing it as a comparison. We don't have the ability to delete our own posts, so I can only assume someone deleted it? I'm not sure why that would have been done?
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Wasn't that one :)
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More Quick Access points (contains screenshots, they're carefully chosen, don't delete this post please):
Navigating Quick Access by mouse is very frustrating - if I do a search for an item, and then select it so I can copy details or access it, there's no way to get back to the search list:
The only way is to use the left cursor key, and that's not clear at all, and there's no UI that tells you to do it or implies it. You have to either just know it, or find it by button mashing, and that's not good. Mouse navigation is important, especially on Mac and Windows. Every action should be able to be performed with a mouse and currently you can't do that.While you're in the state of a selected item, you can actually do a new search in the background - it doesn't update the UI but the search actually happens. You can even open the results of the new search in new windows while you're in this state. Try it - do a search and select an item, edit the text in the search box, press enter, press down a few times and press enter again - you'll end up with a popup of an item matching your new search.
If you have 1Password closed and open Quick Access, it does seem to float over other windows? If you have 1Password open and open Quick Access, it will generally appear where your 1Password window is. It can also get stuck reopening on the desktop you previously opened it on, even if that's another random window. This is super inconsistent and Quick Access needs to always open on whatever desktop you have active - it should never navigate you to a different virtual desktop.
The same thing happens with View details in new window popups - sometimes they appear on the default virtual desktop, sometimes they appear on the virtual desktop you're currently on.
Please consider using a view more like 1Password Mini than the current Quick Access view. This is more like how items appear in the desktop app, it's more like how items appear in the browser extensions, and it's like 1Password 7 works.
You already have a view like this in the present browser extension:
You can add more keyboard navigation to this style of view, and if anything it makes more sense - eg pressing right to select an item and move to it's fields or pressing left to go back to the list of items is more intuitive if you have the item list on the left, and the detail on the items on the right. This also allows me to easily see what fields the items have while just browsing down the list - if I have a lot of 1Password entries, such as software licenses, logins, etc, I can see a lot more detail on each item in this view than in just a list view. The current quick access view only really works for site logins, and even then I don't really think it's as obvious to use as 1Password Mini.
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Just want to echo everything @tomjepp has posted here.
As a former perpetual license user, I made the switch to the subscription in support of going development as I think it's a very reasonable move. When VC funding was announced I was still trying to be optimistic that 1Password would stay true to itself, but I'm no longer able to keep up such optimism.
If this is the future of 1Password (squeezed into sloppy products to meet arbitrary [read: investor] deadlines) I'm out. Customer trust is eroding quickly and I'm doubtful I'll be renewing my subscription.
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1Password 8 feels like a lot of steps backward. I'm going to have to go back to 1Password 7 for now while I figure out what I do next. Really disappointing to see this direction.
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Aha, I see my missing post has reappeared now!
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Would really appreciate some feedback here from 1Password staff as to if the bugs I've raised above are logged and being looked at, and if the other feedback has actually been taken on board or not.
The lack of response isn't helping my frustration with 1P8 so far.
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Hi folks,
I wanted to quickly hop in here to let you know we are reading and reviewing all of the feedback that has been posted. I would love to be able to respond to every point individually, but as you can see we have a huge number of open threads. We're logging all of the points made, but we may not be able to respond to all of the threads, let alone each point. We do truly appreciate the feedback we're receiving and will be looking over all of it closely. We've already released one beta update containing some of the changes that have been suggested.
I apologize we haven't responded here sooner. We're working around the clock to try and log every bit of feedback.
Thank you.
Ben
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The add new item window appears as an in-app modal window, not a real window. This isn't great because I do actually want to copy content or check other items while using it, and this no longer lets me do that.
+1 Strong agree on this, I was running across this yesterday and found it super frustrating.
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1P Mini is great. It went through several iterations as part of version 7 and settled on a design that seems to satisfy most use cases. This new Quick Access feature seems like something that would only be appealing to the QuickSilver/Alfred/Butler crowd. Everybody isn’t a keyboard jockey. I suspect most 1PW users are not.
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