1Password 6 Beta feels inferior and crippled in comparison to 1Password 4
Hello,
I've been using 1Password 4 for over a year now and I liked how the interface and tools were presented as well as the utility it provided. I was happy with that purchase.
Today I decided to sign up for the subscription based service and installed 1Password Beta 6. I now run 4 and 6 side by side.
I do agree that a facelift would be necessary for v4, but what has been done to it with v6 Beta just simply renders the application limited.
I only needed about 10 minutes of use to hate everything about version 6: where did all the useful stuff go? => http://prntscr.com/c1rzeh
1Password 6 Beta doesn't have:
- Generated Passwords view
- Weak Passwords view
- Duplicated Passwords view
- Heartbleed
- Watchtower
- Attachments
- Password strength bar
- Modified date
- Location
- Rich icons (which I understand is currently causing stability issues)
The interface has been reduced to something way too minimalistic to be useful, now 2 clicks are needed to reveal a password => http://prntscr.com/c1s0t4
I tried exporting from v4 and importing into v6. I ended up with a big mess of flat tags instead of well organized "folders", which provided a good approach to work with. I understand that the subscription based model does provide vaults for the purpose of organizing, but it does not offer the same quickness of access that I could get from the previous option.
Folders were great, tags are messy.
I currently use the both the Teams subscription for one of my businesses, the personal subscription and I purchased the original version 4 early in 2015; due to the fact that we're using this on our business, I'll have to keep v6 Beta installed, but I won't be using it until these features are back.
Both v6 Beta and v4 are connected to my personal dropbox based vault and as much as I've tried, I can't find any compelling reason to make me want to use v6 other than it being the only way I can access the other vaults.
I feel that 1Password for Windows has taken a big step back with version 6 and does not provide anywhere near as good value as 1Password 4 did. Based on the desktop application interface only, I would not advise 1Password 6 Beta to anyone.
I am hoping that this changes in the near future. If not I might simply reconsider having the subscription based model before the 6 free months expire.
1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Windows
Sync Type: Not Provided
Comments
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A quick read through a few of the posts here and you'll see this has been answered many times. While the temporary loss of features is regrettable, they made the hard decision to rewrite the app from the ground up. The primary benefit of this is immediate support for cloud sync, something that is lacking from 1Password4. At the moment, it's a tradeoff. But they are working to rebuild the features that 1Password4 has.
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Keep in mind, it is a "beta". And while the team has commented that it will likely ship with some of these "infenior" features as you state, it is out of necessity to get the application working. Frankly, in my opinion, they have done a stellar job both pushing updates and fixing / responding to bugs. As someone who has been on the beta for nearly two months, it has come a long way.
I never used 1PW 4 for Windows, but I can easily compare it to the polished app for Macs. And yes, it is not nearly complete. But I also recognize it is a beta.
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Hi guys,
@autronix, as Michael helpfully mentioned, 1Password 6 Beta is a brand new app in a whole different tooling set, meaning we can't benefit from 1Password 4's mature several-year-old codebase. With a new codebase, we're building everything better and more efficient along with a modern design using the latest UI frameworks from Microsoft. We will implement almost all features that 1Password 4 has and do it better, some features will be dropped in exchange for better implementation that won't need them.
Right now, 1Password 6 Beta isn't the final design, we will be iterating through the entire app continuously while adding the features at the same time. For an example, we do not want that copy text label and want to replace them with an icon style like in 1Password 4. The reason they're in a menu right now is because textual [copy][reveal][large type] buttons takes up too much room in the view. Once replaced as icons, we might do it like 1Password 4. We also want to hide them by default and bring them up when you hover over the field, just like the 1Password.com web app or the macOS app.
The Security Audit feature including Weak Passwords, Duplicates, Watchtower and other views related to it will be implemented in a future update. Same for attachments as the way 1Password.com handles files is different and uses an API instead, which would give us more flexibility in the future as we continue to expand 1Password.com features.
We're still working out the design for the password strength in the details view but it will be added in a future update.
Folders do not exist at all in 1Password.com services, they've replaced with powerful tags instead. Unfortunately, tags are not nested and smart folders don't exist yet. We're starting with tags for now and hope to expand this further in the future. The import is converting the folders to tags, so you don't lose any of the organization structure but the more complex the structure, the more messy the tags will be as two nested folders mean three tags including the parent folder.
The modified date is on the bottom of the details view. This will be the only design, meaning we're not going to use a three column style that 1Password 4 has and show you all the details in the item list.
Rich Icons as you've mentioned, is temporarily turned off until we figure out a better way to load the icons quickly and without destabilizing the app. We will restore this as soon as possible.
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@Michael Will
I would really love to have the time to comb and search through the whole forum for answers. I do have more lucrative things to do however.
They should probably focus on making a blog post or something that can be easily accessible and provides this answers.Thank you for the clarification, this information is not readily available.
@cwanja, you seem to be understanding the definition of what "Beta" means incorrectly.
For your reference: "Software in the beta stage is also known as betaware.[2] Beta phase generally begins when the software is feature complete but likely to contain a number of known or unknown bugs. " (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_release_life_cycle#Beta)1Password v6 for Windows does not qualify as a Beta, this is Alpha software. It should probably be labelled as such, since it is not actually "feature complete":
"Alpha software can be unstable and could cause crashes or data loss. Alpha software may not contain all of the features that are planned for the final version."As for their ability to fix and address issues, I cannot comment on that in any way and I am not criticizing this at all; I am sure that they are working hard at it.
@MikeT
I fully understand the woes of software development, I manage development teams for a living for various projects - I fully understand the problems associated with adding features and releasing an incomplete product. I'd say the typical workflow of Scrum/Agile development.I also understand that this is probably why you are offering 6 months free on the personal subscription model, since the application is still in active development and nowhere near feature complete as far as the Windows version is concerned.
The issue that I am having is that I cannot seem to find a schedule or roadmap for the upcoming updates and I am stuck, for both our Teams accounts and my personal account, with two pieces of software (v4 and v6) with same purpose that are both limited in functionality in their own way.
I understand all the focus is put on the new design for v6, but having a cloud vault compatible intermediate version of v4 with might go a long way while we wait for all the features to make it to v6, which may take anywhere from 6 to 12 months...The Beta labeling for v6 is also misguiding, since as you said in your comments, all the aforementioned features are not yet implemented - my understanding from what you said is that these are neither available server side nor client side.
As I mentioned above, and based on your comments, this is most definitely in an Alpha stage instead - maybe relabeling to Alpha should be considered in order to avoid unrealistic expectations at this time and the confusion that this might cause.Is there an ETA for each of these features?
Should I take the 6-month free offer as a hint that would essentially represent the expectation of when the software will be feature complete?Don't get me wrong, I like the software; I have entered out team in the Teams subscription when it was still in beta. I've also seen mentions on the forum that make it seem that there is much less emphasis put on the Windows side of development, which alienates a big part of your potential audience. I do feel that this is the case.
I personally use 1Password 4 actively on a daily basis and I like it, it does what it is supposed to; with the limitation that I cannot access my team vaults with it.
As I said, at this time, I cannot justify using v6 Beta aside from the fact that it's the only way I can access my team's vaults on my windows box.0 -
Hi @autronix,
The trials and promotions that are happening on 1Password.com is unrelated to the development on Windows, the 6 month trial is not because there is no Windows stable app yet. We've launched 1Password Teams and Families a few months ago with a few months promo as well. Majority of our customers are using Mac and iOS only, where there are mature and stable apps that's feature complete. That's why we've launched the services as is with mature Mac and iOS apps (plus stable 1Password.com web app), and yes with incomplete Windows beta apps. Android app is stable as well but doesn't have everything implemented yet either.
1Password.com has a completely different data structure along with different encryption algorithms that cannot be accommodated in 1Password 4 for Windows without rebuilding it completely, so that's why we're working on a new codebase while leaving 1Password 4 alone for the current standalone customers. The other 1Password apps didn't need this type of overhaul but they were rebuilt long after 1Password for Windows was first released.
We did have a separate development project for Windows that go about this a different way and more quickly but it didn't work out, which is why it is taking us a little bit longer to get 1Password 6 as we're starting from scratch completely and why it feels like we've neglected Windows, it's just that we don't release all of our internal details. We only share when our code is available to share, not prior to that. The few lulls in the development side on Windows is because of this project didn't work out, if it did, we wouldn't be in this situation.
We're also a small private company, we have a different development team working on a native app for each platform, which makes the lulls even more visible when the projects takes a long time to complete. As soon as we ship the first beta, we then starts to open up about our plans for the new betas and where we want to take it. That is what is happening with 1Password 6 right now.
The issue that I am having is that I cannot seem to find a schedule or roadmap for the upcoming updates and I am stuck, for both our Teams accounts and my personal account, with two pieces of software (v4 and v6) with same purpose that are both limited in functionality in their own way.
We do not provide any roadmap or schedule publicly. We do understand that it is not a good state we're in on Windows with different apps having their own pros and cons and no easy way to choose the right now. We are working to reduce this to have one app that can do everything but it is going to take some time.
For now, it is this:
If you have no plans to use 1Password.com subscription and only want to use local vaults, use 1Password 4.
If you have plans to use 1Password.com subscription, 1Password 6 Beta is the only app available on Windows and it can read the local vault files but not modify it. A future update will enable full write support to them.
Eventually, 1Password 6 will get to that state where it will do both local vaults for licensed customers and cloud subscriptions all in one app.
The Beta labeling for v6 is also misguiding, since as you said in your comments, all the aforementioned features are not yet implemented - my understanding from what you said is that these are neither available server side nor client side.
They're available on the server side, there are fully mature apps on the macOS and iOS taking advantage of all of the features that 1Password.com offer.
A fully feature complete version of 1Password 6 for Windows that has all of the features on 1Password.com as well as the previous 1Password 4 version won't be available for many weeks. We don't know how long it'll take to get the same state as 1Password 4 and 1Password 6 for Mac but we're prioritizing based on our current customer's demand. Right now, that's extension support but it is not the only thing we're working on.
We use an iterative agile-type development cycle as you've mentioned, we consider an app as a beta when the core is done and ready to be tested with our public beta community, which isn't the same definition as the standard one, which as you said, means a fully complete app with unknown bugs.
We will ship stable updates even if it does not have all the features, we'll then ship more updates to implement the rest of the feature one at a time.
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You're welcome and if you have any questions or concerns, let us know.
In the mean time, we're going to make some adjustments in the near future where we can make 1Password 4 and 6 compatible with each other, so when you need to use the extension in 1Password 6, it can shut down 1Password 4's Helper for you. Hopefully, it won't be a long wait.
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@autronix - this thread is likely not the correct media (or location) for this topic to continue, but to the point you made about Beta versus Alpha I would like to point out one big player who calls their software 'beta', which should probably be called 'Alpha' - Apple. As a public tester of their iOS, I can certainly say that their public iOS beta is much like the 1Password Windows Beta - at its core, it works but there are missing features. The same is for iOS and is well documented across the internet of features missing or not working from beta to beta. Even through betas, features break and get added / revoked.
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@MikeT, looking forward to it. Thanks for the info.
@cwanja Apple are also known for ignoring standards and coming up with their own solutions for existing implementations - after all, they can afford to do pretty much anything they want and get away with it.
I won't argue this point any further, that would be putting oil to the coding standard purist fire in me.0 -
In the long run, we all want stable apps and the earliest possible in any stages of development.
1Password 6 Beta just happens to be the rare exception to the rule because it is a brand new app but majority of our beta builds are of mature apps that are generally feature complete. For an example, last new codebase on Windows was the first one released back in 2010 and on macOS, it was 1Password 4 back in 2013.
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