Apple Watch Request - Glances
I've looked but don't see a way to add the 1Password app to Glances on the watch. It would make accessing it a little more convenient.
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Comments
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I agree...would be way more user friendly to be able to view in Glances. I'm sure somebody has asked about this earlier but can't find a thread. Could you please address again here?
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Hi @pappjo & @Kent Pavelka!
The reason 1Password cannot be added to Glances is that we haven't written a Glance app for the Apple Watch yet. I'm curious, what information would you like to see in a Glance? I'll admit I'm not sure what useful info could be provided there since a Glance can't have you tap in a passcode to decrypt the contents.
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Right now the most useful item to me is Secure Notes. I use that to create a list of things such as log in data for services at my job that I don't use frequently enough to always remember. Plus each service requires a different user name and password that must be changed every 90 days and none can be the same for any two services. It's a major convenience to just check my wrist, pull up a glance and see all that. Now I have to activate the screen, go to the app screen, tap on 1Password to see the list including Secure Notes, then the note that I need.
Still convenient but having this as a Glance would trim the necessary steps.
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@pappjo Interesting. I can see the utility of speed in getting to 1Password, but I don't know that we can make a Glance that conforms to Apple's Guidelines.
A couple things to keep in mind with Glances:
- You can't interact with third-party Glances. While some of Apple's Glances can be interacted with, such as the Music Glance's player controls, a third-party Glance cannot offer any scrollable contents or buttons. Tapping a third-party Glance simply launches the app.
- Because of the previous point, a third-party Glance must offer useful information. For this I point to Apple's Human Interface Guidelines for Glances:
Make glances contextually relevant. A glance should always give people useful information. For example, you can use time and location data to provide information that matters right now. Avoid using your glance solely as an app launcher.
I italicized the part I am concerned with above. We shouldn't simply make an app launcher. In fact, since it is in the guidelines, it'd likely be grounds for a rejection. Now, you mentioned displaying something like secure notes. Here's where the hitch is in that.
- As mentioned earlier, a third-party Glance cannot scroll contents nor have actionable buttons. So having a list of Secure Notes (or other items) is not appropriate for a Glance.
- As I mentioned in my previous post, the contents of 1Password for Apple Watch are secured by the PIN Code you set up when activating 1Password for Apple Watch. We couldn't display any secured contents in a Glance, as there is no way to decrypt them inside the Glance.
Without the ability to actually display any of your content, that leaves us with, essentially, an App Launcher, which Apple says we shouldn't do. This is why we have thus far not made a Glance for 1Password for Apple Watch.
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I think you made my brain glaze over! But I get the point. I'm just thankful that I can get access to Secure Notes right now since even Apple doesn't include access to their own Note's app.
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You can't make a Glances app launcher, huh? I understand but don't understand why. Anyway, the next question is whether the new operating system coming this fall will change whether 1Password will be able to do this. Also, will the new options with Complications coming with that change, offer an easier way to launch the app? What are you plans in this regard?
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I think you made my brain glaze over!
Hah! Sorry about that. I tend to be very thorough when it comes to my explanations for things.
You can't make a Glances app launcher, huh?
Nope.
I understand but don't understand why.
Sometimes the ways of Apple's guidelines are a mystery, even to us.
Anyway, the next question is whether the new operating system coming this fall will change whether 1Password will be able to do this.
As far as I know, the ability to have native apps with watchOS 2 hasn't changed the functions of Glances, nor their guidelines. I haven't seen anything about Glances receiving tapping controls like Apple's own Glances have.
Also, will the new options with Complications coming with that change, offer an easier way to launch the app?
A Complication may be a possibility. I'll have to read up on the guidelines for those. I imagine they have the same requirement of showing some sort of useful information. We'll explore the possibility, but I can't promise anything.
What are you plans in this regard?
Sorry, I can't talk about future plans other than we'll look into things. :)
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Would it be possible to create a Glance that displays a short list of items based on location (Work, Home, Away from home, etc.)? The user would customize the items that display for each location. Each item could be tapped to open the 1Password app directly to that item. That would be enough functionality to at least pass Apple's guidelines.
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@T_Will, While that is certainly a pretty neat idea, I'm still not sure how we could display anything due to the encryption. The 1Password Watch app would need to be unlocked, and at that point, switching away from it and back to the Watch face to swipe up a glance only to relaunch the app seems a lot less useful.
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Is the data encrypted even when the PIN code is disabled in the Watch app? Could there be a way to cache just the descriptions to be used in the Glance? Thanks.
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@T_Will I'd have to double check with development, but I don't believe we do encrypt if PIN is not enabled for the Watch app. That said, it'd be against our ethos to advise people to not encrypt with a PIN. I'm honestly a little surprised we have the option to not have it.
These ideas for a Glance are great, but there are definitely a lot of things to keep in consideration of the possibility. For now, if quick access is needed, I've found the fastest way to launch is to say, "Hey Siri, open 1Password."
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Thanks for the reply! I assumed that since the Watch locks when taken off, and requires authentication to unlock, that my 1Password data is safe enough to not use an extra passcode on 1Password.
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Indeed! Thanks for the feedback! We're also excited about the new possibilities that watchOS 2.0 may afford us in the future. :)
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With one-time passwords, a glance (or even a complication!) would be amazingly useful. I have to use TOTP for work, and having to launch another app is annoying. I'm glad that OTP has been added to all the 1Password apps (Mac, iOS, Watch), but it needs to be more accessible.
It would be great to have an option to show 1 or more OTPs in a glance, and 1 in a complication for quick access to a frequently used account.
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@robprentiss: I agree! However, unless we can somehow make it configurable it won't be very useful. The main problem with the concept of a 1Password Apple Watch Glance at this time is that it would need to include all of your 1Password Apple Watch items (unwieldy at best) or automatically choose for you which information to display (annoying, and possibly a security concern).
Glances
You can't make a Glances app launcher, huh?
Nope.
I understand but don't understand why.
Sometimes the ways of Apple's guidelines are a mystery, even to us.
To be clear, Apple Watch app Glances can launch their respective apps, but Apple doesn't want this to be the only thing a Glance does. My guess is that Apple is (justifiably) concerned that every 3rd party Apple Watch will add a Glance to make it easier to launch the app itself, but of course that's the purpose of the Home screen.
Now, I personally am not a fan of the Home screen, but I think this is because I opted for a 38mm Apple Watch. I have rather sausagey fingers, so tapping an icon there is — quite literally — hit or miss for me. But having a lighter, less bulky thing on my wrist was important to me since I hadn't worn a watch for probably more than 20 years.
But at the same time, I hate roughly 90% of the Glances offered by even the 3rd party apps I have chosen to install on my Apple Watch. They're generally pretty useless, and Glances become less and less useful the more you have to swipe through. And of course it isn't possible for me to configure what information these show to make them more useful to me.
Complications
I use the highly configurable Modular face, but I have exactly one 3rd party Complication that I use. And it's simply a replacement for Apple's Weather app (shout out to Dark Sky!) since very few apps actually provide accurate weather information for my particular area. The rest of the 3rd party Complications I've tried suffer from a problem similar to Glances: they offer non-configurable information of questionable utility, and they take up valuable space in the highly space-constrained environment of watchOS. So I don't use most of them.
So while Glances and Complications are exciting and fun at first glance (ha!), we really don't want to offer one or the other in 1Password unless we can make them useful to most people. Now, if you happen to only have a single item added to 1Password on your Apple Watch, this may seem like a no-brainer; because of course then a Glance or Complication would be guaranteed to show what you want them to! But while I have very few (4 currently) 1Password items on my Apple Watch, I definitely don't have few enough to for a Glance or Complication displaying all of it to be helpful, and having 1Password choose for me wouldn't be very helpful either.
Edit: One other thing I forgot to touch on is security: a Glance or Complication currently couldn't allow you to unlock 1Password with your PIN code, so security would either need to be disabled completely (please no!), it would need to display potentially sensitive information even with 1Password locked (you call that security?), or the Glance/Complication would just sit there empty unless or until you go unlock 1Password itself (yuck!)...
That said, if we can find a way to do something useful like what you're suggesting in the future, it's definitely something we'd be interested in pursuing. And with two major watchOS releases this year, it's clear that Apple is committed to continuing to mature the platform, so it may be just a matter of time before more awesome things become possible.
Please continue to provide this kind of feedback, because if and when more possibilities present themselves, having a clear sense of how people use 1Password on their Apple Watches will help us make it even more awesome! :chuffed:
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@brenty you bring up valid points, but you already solved them in your first sentence. --make it configurable.
As for the passcode on the Apple Watch app, I don't really understand the point of it. I guess some people are paranoid, but considering the watch locks itself once it leaves my wrist, I don't need a second passcode to protect the limited amount of password data in the app.
Now I might be in the minority, because I actually do fall into the category of people who only have one thing in the watch app (an OTP), just because anything else needing a password I would be doing on my phone. I could imagine putting something else on there that I use IRL instead of on the computer or phone, but those are usually PINs, which are pretty easy to remember, so probably not.
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On the Watch app, it would be helpful to see the regular password along with the one-time password (instead of just the OTP).
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As for the passcode on the Apple Watch app, I don't really understand the point of it. I guess some people are paranoid, but considering the watch locks itself once it leaves my wrist, I don't need a second passcode to protect the limited amount of password data in the app.
It's our job to be the most paranoid of all when we design the security systems for 1Password. We actually use the PIN code on 1Password for Apple Watch to encrypt the data and also to provide another layer of lockout if the 1Password PIN is entered incorrectly. You can read up on that here.
On the Watch app, it would be helpful to see the regular password along with the one-time password (instead of just the OTP).
Thanks! I'll add your vote to our request ticket for that. We explain our reasoning for keeping the TOTP and login username/password separate on the Watch here.
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@brenty you bring up valid points, but you already solved them in your first sentence. --make it configurable.
@robprentiss: I covered that in my previous post as well, though I may not have expressed myself perfectly. There isn't a way to do this given the current technology, but it's certainly something we'll keep an open mind about in the future! Glances and Complications just don't have any input options, and input on Apple Watch is pretty limited regardless.
I don't need a second passcode to protect the limited amount of password data in the app. [...] I actually do fall into the category of people who only have one thing in the watch app (an OTP)
Exactly! It totally depends on what you're putting there, of course. While iOS has been battle-tested, Apple Watch itself and watchOS 2.0 in particular have not. In theory it should be just as secure as iOS is, but we'd be remiss if we didn't build in our own safeguards (it's freaking 1Password, mannn!):
- Even with supported items, not all fields are stored on Apple Watch
- PIN code can be used to encrypt 1Password data stored on Apple Watch, over and above watchOS/iOS itself
- Store only the TOTP code on Apple Watch for Login items that include it, rather than all login credentials
Also keep in mind that when 1Password for Apple Watch was conceived, designed, and developed, Apple Watch had no activation lock! :dizzy:
While thankfully that particular deficiency has been rectified with watchOS 2.0, we still want to give people the appropriate tools to be able to secure their data. But of course just as you can choose the strength of your Master Password, it's entirely up to you to what degree you take advantage of these. Cheers! :)
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