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Unofficial "Look Up in 1Password" bookmarklet for iOS 5
1Password is one of my most-used iOS apps, since I need it to log in to any site which requires a password. Since the introduction of 1Password on iOS, Agile has provided a bookmarklet which will open 1Password and then search for the current domain. That helps the fact that 1Password can't be fully integrated with Safari on iOS. Unfortunately the bookmarklet stopped working in iOS 5. According to the company's blog, Agile has discontinued the bookmarklet and won't be updating it. They are working on "something better coming up for the future." They went on to add that they want to make 1Password's own integrated browser "more usable as "a Safari replacement, or rather partial replacement." While I will reserve judgment until I see it, I have serious reservations about this plan. I have used iCab Mobile on the iPad for over a year. iCab is a superior browser to Safari, but it is still difficult to use instead of Safari because iOS doesn't allow you to change the default browser. It's hard to imagine that 1Password's integrated browser will be better than iCab. Fortunately, two 1Password users, Kevin Yank and Brendan Averett, have created a new Look Up in 1Password bookmarklet which is compatible with iOS 5. You can either copy that link, or use this: javascript:window.location='onepassword://'+window.location.href.substring(window.location.href.indexOf('//')+2 I have successfully tested it on iOS 5 and 1Password Pro (with both Safari and iCab).
1Password: The best iPhone utility app in TUAW's Best of 2011
If you just got a new iPhone for Christmas, there's one handy utility app that you might want to purchase right away. It's 1Password for iPhone (sale priced at US$5.99) from Agile Bits Solutions, and it was named the best iPhone utility app in reader voting in TUAW's Best of 2011 awards. The app is a favorite of the TUAW staff, and it's obvious from the voting that 1Password is used faithfully by many of our readers as well -- the app pulled in 49.7 percent of the votes, thoroughly trouncing the other nominees in this category. It actually comes in two flavors -- the iPhone-only version linked to above, and the universal 1Password Pro (currently on sale for $8.99) that synchronizes with 1Password on Mac and iPad. Apple had the runner-up in this category. Find My iPhone (free), an amazing app that has reunited many lost or stolen iPhones with their owners, nabbed 32.3 percent of the votes. Congratulations to Agile Bits for their win, and thanks to all of the TUAW readers who took part in the nomination and voting process for the utility category in the Best of 2011.
TUAW Best of 2011: Vote for the best iPhone utility app
The nominations are in, and the poll is ready to go! The TUAW Best of 2011 awards are all about you -- the readers -- and what you think is the cream of the crop of Apple or third-party products and software. To vote, select one entry from the top nominations made by readers. We'll be announcing the winner in just a few days. Vote early and often! TUAW is asking for your votes for the best iPhone utility app of 2011. Since a majority of nominations were from the wrong categories, and some were even for the wrong platform, a straw poll of favorite iPhone utilities was taken with a sampling of Web luminaries and makes up our list of candidates. The nominees are Flashlight (sale priced at US$0.99, regularly $1.99), Apple's Airport Utility (free), Skyfire Web Browser ($2.99), 1Password for iPhone ($5.99), and the app that has saved a lot of iPhones, Apple's Find My iPhone (free). And now, let the voting begin! The results will be announced on December 26, 2011. %Poll-72269%
iOS deals begin, App Store freeze coming Thursday
And so it begins -- the App Store has its busiest time of the year over the Christmas holiday, when iPhones and iPads and iTunes gift cards are unwrapped under the Christmas tree, and millions of people take to the App Store to pick up some great apps. There are lots of sales coming out this week. We'll have more posts each day, and stay tuned to our Twitter account for even more. Velocispider is free right now. ComicBook! is down to just 99 cents. Sesame Street's Monster at the End of this Book (starring Grover, of course) is only 99 cents right now as well. 1Password for iPad is on sale for $5.99, well worth it according to fans of the app. The micro version of Sword and Sworcery is just 99 cents, while the universal version is $1.99. EA's mobile sale continues -- Trenches 2 is currently on sale for just a buck, along with more than a hundred other EA titles. Odds are that if EA makes it, you can get it for cheap this week. Sega also has a big 99 cent sale going on, with Golden Axe, Streets of Rage, Gunstar Heroes, and many other titles available for just a buck. Gameloft's also got a nice library of titles on sale, including the Gameloft Action Pack of games. And so does Square Enix, but those games have only dropped a few bucks to around $4.99 to $11.99, rather than down to 99 cents. Still, Final Fantasy Tactics for $11.99 is not a bad deal if you've been waiting for it to drop. Firemint (through EA) has Spy Mouse on sale for a buck. You've bought that one already, right? Readdle's got a sale going on its apps, including ReaddleDocs for iPad on sale tomorrow for $2.99. Happy Hills has gone free for a limited time. Big Fish Games is having a huge sale on most of its titles starting tomorrow -- there's a lot of good stuff in there, including Drawn: The Painted Tower for cheap, and Azada HD as well. In Case of Fire is free through the holidays. That's just the beginning -- stay tuned all through the week for more deals on lots of different apps and games around the App Store. Everything will likely be sorted by Thursday (as that's when developers become unable to make any more price or app changes), but before then, we'll see lots and lots of apps on sale, no doubt.
Daily Update for Sept. 8, 2011
It's the TUAW Daily Update, your source for Apple news in a convenient audio format. You'll get all the top Apple stories of the day in three to five minutes, which is perfect for a quick review of what's happening in the Apple world. You can listen to today's Apple stories by clicking the inline player (requires Flash) or the non-Flash link below. To subscribe to the podcast for listening through iTunes, click here. No Flash? Click here to listen.
1Password now available on Mac App Store
If you haven't already heard, AgileBits has unleashed their fantastic password manager 1Password upon the Mac App Store. Not only is it now available in a convenient easy-to-update form, but this new version will include new features and an easy upgrade path to 4.0. Not to mention it's also HALF off at the moment. For those of you who have somehow missed the 1Password boat, it is a password manager that lets you set a "master password" and then stash all sorts of sensitive info behind it: website logins, credit card numbers, software serial numbers, even secure notes. One of my favorite features is password generation: I can tell it my Facebook password needs to be 16 character and super high security and boom! As if by magic, I have a highly crack-resistent password. Thanks to the magic of browser add-ons I can fill in web forms with my credit card information or any other bit of stuff I have secreted away behind that master password. Did I mention they also have an iOS app and Dropbox syncing so all your goodies are available on all your Apple hardware? Well, there you go. (There's a Windows version too, should you need that sort of thing. Not that there's anything wrong with that.) If you're an existing customer, here are a few of the changes you'll want to know about in the new version: A new menubar icon for easy access from any application, full-screen support and 64-bit support. This new version requires Lion, so be sure you're all upgraded before you pull the trigger. We here at TUAW rather like 1Password, since it's a straightforward app that does what it does very well. If you haven't yet moved to some sort of password solution, this is a great opportunity to do so. Congratulations to AgileBits on getting to show off all the hard work they've been doing lately!
1Password, Lion and that new Safari extension
1Password version 3 was recently made available with Mac OS X Lion compatibility, enhanced keyboard shortcuts and, most notably for Safari users, a new Safari extension. The new extension borrows heavily from its Chrome counterpart and represents a departure from the older version. I spoke with Dave Chartier about what Safari users can expect from the current version of 1Password as well a few other goodies. TUAW: Dave, thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions for me. Right off the bat I've got to ask you about the re-designed Safari extension, which is available to Lion users and Snow Leopard users running Safari 5.1. It's quite a departure from its predecessor, at least in the looks department. What can you tell me about the new extension? Dave: With the new extension we wanted to give users a bigger slice of 1Password right in the browser. The goal was to give you access to more of your data without having to open the 1Password app, and yet speed up the login and form-filling experience whether you're a mouse cowboy or keyboard ninja. It is now much easier to flip through between your Logins, Identities, Credit Cards, and the Strong Password Generator, and new users should have a much easier time learning and exploring what 1Password can do for them. TUAW: I see that the new Safari extension is similar to the Chrome extension, at least in appearance. What motivated the team to bring the Chrome extension's look to Safari? Dave: Why, it's all just part of the plan! We released our Chrome extension early in 2010. We've been working for a some time towards unifying as much of our extension code and interface as possible, and with the increased pace of Chrome and now Firefox development, we grew more motivated to focus our efforts there in order to improve the update process for our users. Last November we decided to try out this new interface and extension architecture with our Chrome users and it was a huge hit. We received fantastic feedback, and when Apple announced Lion earlier this year and a number of changes coming to Safari 5.1 for Snow Leopard users, we decided Safari should be the next step. One of the great features of this new extension is that it will allow us to update it without having to update the 1Password application. Automatic extension updates is a big selling point of Chrome, and now Safari supports it too. In fact, this new version installs as an official Safari extension -- you can open Safari 5.1's preferences and see for yourself. TUAW: Are there any other goodies that Lion users can expect from the latest version of 1Password? My favorite goodies (which work for both Lion and Snow Leopard users in Safari 5.1) are all the new keyboard shortcuts, which we highlight on our blog and in a dedicated support document. You can now call the 1Password extension, find a login, tab between your Logins, Identities, Credit Cards, and Strong Password Generator, and view details on every item (including password history!) without touching your mouse. The ability to view an item's details comes in handy in a bunch of ways too, such as when you need to log into a Flash site. Instead of having to stop what you're doing, open the 1Password app, and hunt for your login there, you can just stay in the browser and open the new 1Password extension, then hit the right arrow key to view your Login's details and copy the password to paste into the form. It's a huge time saver. Thanks, Dave! 1Password has many fans on the TUAW staff, myself included. Here's to future updates.
1Password 3.6 adds Lion support, drops Leopard/PowerPCs (Updated)
1Password 3.6 is out now with a plethora of changes. Most notably, Mac OS X 10.7 Lion is now supported while OS X 10.5 Leopard and PowerPC support has been dropped. David Chartier writes that the number of 1Password customers who are using Leopard or a PowerPC-based Mac has fallen into the single digits. Dropping Leopard/PowerPC support enables developers to shrink 1Password's size by 12 percent. Chartier told TUAW that AgileBits looked into adopting Snow Leopard features such as Grand Central Dispatch in January 2010. The Snow Leopard features make it easier to do things under the hood, having a big impact on user-end experience, but essentially weren't possible with Leopard. AgileBits co-founders made the final decision to pull Leopard support after consulting with the rest of the team, including support personnel and developers. Chartier said that less than six percent of 1Password users are on Leopard. Leopard users can download an older version of 1Password as needed. Lion support, on the other hand, means that 1Password will be compatible with the OS from the day it's available in the Mac App Store. The Safari extension also received an update to match it to the Chrome extension that debuted in November. Other changes to 1Password include: Adds support for Firefox 5 while dropping support for Firefox 3. Adds support for Fluid Adds support for the upcoming Dropbox 1.2 Changed the About page to reflect the company's name change to AgileBits. Removed Camino extension Can use Amazon CloudFront as an alternate download location A number of other bug fixes and changes 1Password 3.6 for Mac requires OS X 10.6 or higher. A single-user license is US$39.99 and a family license is $59.99. Upgrade pricing varies, depending on the original date of purchase. A free trial is available. Update: Chartier clarified that the redesigned Safari extension will only be seen in Lion. Snow Leopard users retain the current extension. Update 2: Chartier let us know that the redesigned Safari extension will be available to Snow Leopard users once Apple releases Safari 5.1, which is currently in developer preview.
Ask TUAW: Charging MacBooks, securing passwords, color matching and more
Welcome to Ask TUAW, your favorite weekly question-and-answer column. Now, we can never have too many questions, so please, go to the comments of this post and ask away. To get fabulous answers, we need your fabulous questions. You can also email your questions directly to ask [at] tuaw.com, or ping us on Twitter. Now, off to the questions! Daniel asks: I have a original MacBook for which I am currently on my third charger. And for the third time, it's no longer working. So I need to buy a new one, but was considering buying the 85-watt adapter (with the new metal end) meant for the larger MacBook Pros. This way, I can use it as a spare charger when I eventually buy a new MacBook Pro. What I'm wondering is if I can use the 85-watt charger with my 60-watt MacBook without any adverse effects? The general idea I've gotten from forums is that it is OK, but is there any documentation from Apple on this?
The best Mac and iOS apps I used in 2010
Following up on my article about the best Mac apps I used in 2010, here are some of the best hybrid "Mac and iOS apps" I used in 2010. This wasn't an attempt to come up with a specific number, just the results of some careful reflection. You may wonder why some apps appear on this list instead of the Mac list. For example, Dropbox has an iOS app, why not add it here? Because my primary use of Dropbox is on the Mac. Yes I use it with iOS, but it's usually through another app that is syncing back to my Mac. On the other hand, using OmniFocus for iPad (our review) led to me using OmniFocus for Mac more, so I put OmniFocus on this list. All that is to say, these are my distinctions, and you are free to disagree with them. 1) myPhoneDesktop (or MPD) is a little-known gem of the iOS world. The US$5 universal iOS app pairs with desktop software on your Mac, Windows or Linux PC, and it allows you to send text, phone numbers and even images to your iOS device. While there are lots of pasteboard sharing apps (like Pastebot) that allow two-way sharing of pasteboard data, I find myself using MPD much more often because it is simpler and easier to use. If I am on my Mac and want to download a new app on my iPad, I select the URL from Safari and press command (⌘) + C + C (just like regular "copy" except you press "C" twice). Instantly, I get a push notification from MPD on my iPad, which opens the link, hands it off to the App Store app, and I purchase and download the app right from my iPad. Since I first reviewed it, MPD has been continually improved and updated, including support for iCab Mobile on iOS devices as well as GoodReader and even GV Connect, which means that you can place a call through Google Voice on your iPhone from a message sent from your computer! Read on for more...
Mac 101: Securing your passwords after the Gawker breach
Thanks to questionable security practices at Gawker Media (publishing parent of many high-profile websites including Gizmodo and Lifehacker), a number of people are busy scrambling to change their passwords on a lot of different sites today. Gawker stored encrypted passwords on its servers instead of password hashes (and stored those passwords using the deprecated DES standard), so as a result of some weekend hacking, a lot of email addresses and passwords were stolen. Gawker Media is asking anyone who uses its comment system to change their password immediately, and if they used the same email address and password on other websites, they should change those passwords as well. If you have used any of the Gawker sites in the past, you can use Slate's Gawker Hack widget to determine if your email address and password was part of the group that was compromised. Some other sites like LinkedIn are proactively disabling the accounts of users who were included in the data dump, requiring them to reset their passwords before they can get back in. Common sense dictates that for the best security, every website account should have a separate password; you should never use a dictionary word, birthday or family name as your password; strong passwords always need a mix of capitals and lowercase letters, numbers and (if acceptable to the service you're logging into) punctuation/non-alphanumerics. (The number of people who used 'password' or '123456' as their comment login in the Gawker system is truly shocking.) However, our puny human brains don't work well with strong passwords; we just can't remember a lot of passwords that are random gibberish, and even using mnemonics and other tricks for password generation can fill up the ol' brain pretty quickly. There are some ways to generate strong passwords that are associated with just one website -- and keep them recorded securely on your Mac or in the cloud -- so click that Read More link to see how.
Our favorite tips and hints for 1Password, now out on Windows and Chrome
1Password is having a big week. The Windows version has arrived at version 1.0, and Google Chrome support has been added. In addition, there are a lot of new 1Password users this week, thanks to Agile's promotion that let users give away free licenses to friends. Not using 1Password yet? New customers can save 20% right now. You can also get a free copy of "Take Control of Passwords on Mac OS X" just by logging into Agile's Customer Center. It seemed like a good time to share some of my favorite 1Password tips and hints. First: Track your weak passwords. If you are like most people, you have a handful (hopefully more than one!) of passwords that you reuse at several different sites. 1Password can help by generating secure passwords for you, but at first, you might just want to tell 1Password to save your logins at all of the sites that you log into because you don't think you have time to change them all. If so, create a Smart Folder to track weak passwords. A "Smart Folder" will act much like saved Spotlight searches in Finder, Smart Mailboxes in Mail or Smart Playlists in iTunes: define some criteria, and 1Password will show you all the entries that match. For example, let's say that you use "billy1" as your password for a bunch of sites. Go to File » New Smart Folder, and tell 1Password to look for Passwords that contain "billy1," click the "Save" button and name the Smart Folder. When you are ready to start making secure passwords, use that folder to keep track of all of the websites where you used that same weak password. More tips after the break...
TUAW's Holiday Gift Guide: 10 must-have apps for a new Mac
Welcome to the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide! We've sorted the treasure from the junk and are serving up suggestions to make your holiday gift-giving a little easier. Once the gift-giving holidays arrive, the lucky among us will find new Macs among our haul. Part of the fun of owning a Mac is acquiring some goodies to go with it. In this post, we'll focus on software. Specifically, the 10 apps you'll absolutely want on your new machine. WIthout further delay, here's our list (all prices are USD). 1. Quicksilver (free) [The Quicksilver page appears to be down, here's an alternate. - Ed] This is absolutely, positively the first piece of software I install on every new Mac. In fact, I dislike using a Mac without it. Quicksilver is a utility which, at first, appears to be a launcher. That is the most popular way to use it. Assign a hotkey combination to elicit its minimal window (there are several designs to choose from), type the first few letters of your target app, hit return and presto! Your app launches. This also works with URLs, contact names and phone numbers...on and on. Plus, the more you use it, the smarter it becomes. Now I can just hit "Command-Space-T" to open TUAW, even if a browser isn't running. It's a huge time-saver. Of course, that's barely the beginning of what Quicksilver can do. A huge number of other apps offer Quicksilver support. For instance, you can upload files via FTP with Transmit, launch AppleScripts, move files, compose email messages and more, all with a few keystrokes that will get so finely sewn into your muscle memory that conscious thought will be removed from the process. Not a bad start; our first gift suggestion is supremely useful and free! Now, on to number two.
Last day for Bodega half-off sales on Mac apps
Update: If it wasn't clear originally -- you have to download the Bodega client first, and purchase the apps through its store. Some readers were confused by the link to the 1Password site, which was for illustration purposes only -- the discount on the Mac client is specific to Bodega. Today's the last day to grab some deals from Bodega. The would-be app store for Mac OS X software is offering a 50 percent discount on the following applications through the end of the day: 1Password ($19.97) Sandvox ($28.50) Cockpit ($12.49) MoneyWell ($24.99) Clean My Mac ($14.97) Brush Pilot ($7.50) Mac DVDRIpper Pro ($4.97) My Living Desktop ($17.47) This is a great deal on some really awesome software for your Mac. A good many of us love 1Password, and Sandvox is a great WYSIWYG web editor that's won an Apple Design Award. To take advantage of the sale, you need to purchase the software through Bodega, which is a free download.
Protect your browser from "tabnabbing"
Have you heard about "Tabnabbing"? It is the term for a new kind of attack, which can be summarized as grabbing a Web browser tab when you aren't looking and making it appear as another site. Aza Raskin, lead designer for Firefox, created a page that illustrates this. If you click on that link and then ignore it for awhile (create and switch to another tab), Aza's page will turn into a lookalike for Gmail. He claims this will work in "all major browsers," and I confirmed it in Safari, Google Chrome, and Firefox on the Mac. It even worked -- albeit poorly and less regularly -- in OmniWeb and Opera. However, before users of either of those browsers claim some sort of victory, please realize that my testing was not scientific or extensive, and Aza's "proof of concept" may not be as thorough as some other sites. Aza's example isn't too difficult to spot; if you look at the Address Bar you will see this URL still points to his domain, but he could easily redirect you to a non-Latin domain name that looks like a different website which would be harder to spot. What should you do to protect yourself? Well, perhaps unsurprisingly, Aza thinks you should use Firefox, which has an Account Manager feature that is supposed to help protect you from this kind of attack. But what about the next phishing attack? Or what if you prefer a different browser? Read on for a better solution that will allow you to use just about any browser you choose...
1Password for Windows beta available
For a lot of our readers, working with a Windows machine at the office is a way of life; in other words, you probably don't have a choice. Agile Web Solutions, developers of the popular 1Password and 1Password touch applications for Mac, iPhone, and iPad, have announced today that a Windows version of 1Password is available for beta testing. This means that for the first time, it will be possible to use 1Password for password syncing and storage of private information on the Windows platform as well as the various Apple platforms without resorting to the 1Password Anywhere web-based access feature. For those of you who have changed a password on a corporate system at work, only to find out when you're working from home on your Mac that you can't remember it, this is going to be a real help. No pricing or final release date has been announced, but you can join in on the fun of testing the Windows version by downloading a copy from the 1Password Windows forum.
1Password for iPad will be free upgrade from iPhone version
Agile Web Solutions, the company behind 1Password, has laid out what I have seen as the most sensible model so far for pricing on iPad apps. They announced on their blog how the new apps will work: They are selling 1Password for iPad for $6.99 and it is aimed at people who do not and will not own the iPhone/iPod touch versions. This version will be all iPad, all the time. If you have an iPad and an iPhone/iPod touch, you can pick up 1Password Pro right now for $8.99 (it's on sale right now, the price will eventually go up to $14.99) and later on, this version will also include other features that won't make it to the standard version (one in particular they mention is MobileMe syncing). I'm happy to read anything about iPhone and iPad app development, and I like hearing that someone has given thought to, and made allowances for, both types of iPad users (those who own an iPhone or iPod touch, and those who don't). I also like their transparency in letting people know how the upgrade path will go. I'm still wondering about pricing in the App Store for iPad apps, and how peacefully all of this will end up coexisting. There's nothing to do but wait and see how things actually shake out with real users and actual app purchases, but I'm hoping there's more thoughtful examination and graceful upgrading out there. Knowing that consumers can be, shall we say, less than kind about things like pricing and upgrades, I'm hoping Agile will get credit for having spent some time on making this easier on people.
MobileMe and Dropbox, a study in opposites
I have been using 1Password to move from "less secure" to "more secure" passwords. Like many people, I got into the bad habit of reusing a (relatively weak) password - let's call it "pa$$word" - on many different sites. I recently made a "New Smart Folder" in 1Password tasked with finding any site where my password is "pa$$word," and have been browsing the results. That's when realized I was using the same password for both MobileMe and Dropbox. I was surprised how easy it was to change one of them, and what a complete pain it was to change the other. To change my Dropbox password, I logged in, clicked a link labeled "Account" and then another labeled "Account Settings." Even a web novice could manage that. Next, I entered my old password, control clicked the "New Password" field, chose the 1Password submenu, and selected "Strong Password Generator," which produced nice random string of letters, numbers, and symbols. I then clicked "Change Settings" and that was it. I expected that I would have to update all of my Dropbox clients (iMac, MacBook Pro, and iPhone) and change the password on each of them. I didn't. Dropbox automatically told all of the clients, "Hey, the password changed, and since you're an authorized client, here's the new information." Even the iPhone client automatically updated. It was smooth as could be. In fact you could say it "just worked." MobileMe, on the other hand, "just didn't" -- at least not easily.
1Password on your iPad
1Password, the oft-mentioned password manager and form filler, has just posted mockups of their in-the-works iPad version. Previously available on the desktop and for the iPhone, 1Password has undergone some visual overhauls already. The iPad version appears to take the current interface a little further with a few nice visual tweaks, and take full advantage of the large touch area of the iPad. The design looks great to me, and I especially like the main toolbar with its recessed icons. The developers (and their graphic designer) appear to be taking the new form factor into consideration and generating a very usable interface. I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on the iPad version, pending the purchase of an iPad, of course. Check out the post at the developer's blog for a better look!
Macworld 2010: David Chartier talks 1Password
You never know who's going to turn up at the TUAW booth; could be a former blogger coming to say hello, could be a representative of the company that makes a much-loved Mac & iPhone utility... but the odds of both of those things happening at the same exact time? That can only mean one thing: our old friend David Chartier in the hot seat to tell us about all the 1Password news.
