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Comment by astrodust | Hacker News Reader

It's good to see that 1Password is staying several steps ahead here to avoid being "Sherlocked" by Apple.

The new SSH key manager feature is an example of something Apple's unlikely to address for years, if ever. https://developer.1password.com/docs/ssh/manage-keys/

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I really tried to like their new non-native app, and if it works well I could probably live with it, but it was so buggy and glitchy, even to the point where browser auto-fill often just... wouldn't. That's a basic feature.

I switched to iCloud Passwords a few months ago and I'm very happy with the product. Looks like this Passwords app is a nice new GUI over the top of that same database.

Same here. I switched from 1P to Passwords a while back, then switched back when I got a free 1P account from my job. I'd already started thinking about returning to Passwords, though. Much as I wish I could love 1Password, the current app is a mess. I have a Mac Studio without Touch ID and the "unlock with Apple Watch" feature almost never works. They also refuse to allow unlocking with YubiKeys (see https://www.reddit.com/r/1Password/comments/ttt2m0/yubikey_i...) for reasons I consider specious.

1P has some wonderful work-oriented features we use constantly. I don't like the direction it's going for personal stuff.

I stick to 1Password 7 for that reason - thankfully it still works for the time being.

If 1P was aiming to get attention of an average consumer, Apple might start eating their lunch. SSH key manager is great, but the amount of people who needs it is very small compared to general market.

They're certainly focusing on a more sophisticated market, especially in the corporate space.

1password is too expensive when compared to Bitwarden or Keeper.

It's almost double the price per user so my company switched to Bitwarden.

We're a Mac shop and if Apple can make it even more affordable then we would definitely consider switching again.

I feel like the people who throw out “Sherlocking” are the same ones who also whine whenever they have to install third-party software for whatever the OS doesn’t do out of the box.

Is this not exactly what the Apple Keychain does? Manage keys?

Might sound like a technicality, but: iCloud Keychain can store the passphrase but can't store the key itself. You still need an encrypted private key on-disk to use this: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/250572 .

1Password saves the key itself in the encrypted vault and implements an SSH agent that can then interact with OpenSSH etc. and provide key operations, like how a physical dongle would function.

Ah, that is a very important distinction. Thanks for clarifying! For my purposes, the passphrase storage works fine, but I can see how the vault could be a useful feature.

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