Interview: Dave Teare on 1Passwd and the iPhone
I recently got the chance to chat with Dave Teare, the co-author of 1Passwd. 1Passwd is considered to be the best password manager on the Mac, by a wide margin. It has an automated form filler, encrypts passwords and integrates nicely with the OS X keychain.
I started by asking him about the company and how they developed 1Passwd. We then moved on to some juicy iPhone news and beta invites that you’ll certainly want to know. We won’t spoil anything, you’ll have to read on and find out.
Marvin: Hi Dave, thank you so much for chatting with us.
Dave: Sure thing. Thank you for inviting me.
Marvin: I’d like to start by talking about Agile Web Solutions. Tell us more about your company, and the developers behind 1Passwd.
Dave: Agile is a young company that my best friend and I started back in the summer of 2005 in Toronto. Roustem and I were both doing the “Enterprise Java” thing since 2000 and had effectively rode that dead horse as far as it could take us. One day the stress of the aimless corporate life finally caused me to snap and venture out on my own.
Thank God Roustem had reached his limit too and followed me, otherwise Agile would never be where it is today. Entering our 3rd year, we have started to grow the company and just hired two very talented blokes – Carl from Tennessee and Chad from Colorado. With their help we plan on taking Agile to the next level.
Marvin: What was your inspiration to create 1Passwd?
Dave: Two words: Password Fatigue. This is what the UN has coined as the proliferation of passwords. I know I needed strong and unique passwords for each site, but because of the limitations in each browser’s password manager, I defaulted to using 2 passwords; one for important sites, and one for not-so-important sites.
I hated this feeling of guilt all the time; I was always afraid of phishing attacks because the thief would have the one password I used on all my important sites. In fact, before we had 1Passwd, Roustem was so afraid that he wouldn’t tell me the company’s Paypal password. I needed a tool that would simplify the way passwords were managed, without being tricked by scam artists. That’s how the idea of 1Passwd was born.
Marvin: How did it go from concept to reality?
Dave: Interestingly enough, in our original plan for 1Passwd, we planned to have a quick one month project just to “scratch our own itch”, and then return to our web site ideas we were working on. To our surprise we found the response to be fantastic, so we decided to spend another month on 1Passwd.
After the second month, we realized that the demand for 1Passwd was real, so we spent a full year on active development, with no end in sight. Thankfully I love working on 1Passwd, so I’m not upset over the web sites we planned to create. Best of all, Mac users are a lot cooler to deal with compared to other groups of people we’ve had experience with.
Marvin: Walk us through the applications in your Dock right now.
Dave: *Chuckles*, this is not going to go over very well. I just reinstalled Tiger after downgrading from Leopard, so my Dock is slowly being rebuilt. The only things I’ve currently added are XCode, 1Passwd, Adium, and Filechute. I have DEVONthink, VMWare Fusion, and TextMate installed but not visible on the Dock yet. They’ll be there soon.
I guess what would probably be more interesting is installed apps that don’t have a Dock icon. Quicksilver is definitely in that list. I can’t live without it. Sometimes Quicksilver would crash on me and I would feel paralyzed. How can you open QuickSilver when your app launcher crashes? As far as I know all you can do is reboot. *Chuckles*.
Marvin: Do you use any apps specially for customer support?
Dave: Yep, we use both MousePose and Snapz. Whenever someone has a question, I highlight the important details with MousePose, snap a pic with Snapz, and drag the image onto FileChute’s Dock icon to upload it. FileChute copies it to my Clipboard automatically, so I can quickly paste it in an email. Jay Teo from YellowMug has done a great job understanding how his apps fit into peoples’ workflow. I really respect that.
Marvin: What kind of Mac hardware do you use?
Dave: I am a technology fanatic and buy a new MacBook Pro at every opportunity I have. My wife says I am always the first lemming off the cliff *chuckles*.
I switched way back in 2004 when I bought my first Mac, a PowerBook. Then I bought a MacBook Pro immediately after the transition to Intel, and bought another new MacBook Pro a few weeks ago. It is an insatiable appetite to try something new. I’m already dreaming of the Intel Penryn chipset when the die shrinks to 45nm.
Marvin: I’m interested to know what Apple-themed sites you browse on a daily basis.
Dave: For the most part I try not to venture out on the web without a clear mission. I had to cut back my web surfing drastically now that I don’t have the corporate regime to keep me focused. I do sneak out sometimes, however, and invariably the first place I go is to the Apple news and rumor sites, like MacNN and MacRumors.
Marvin: What are your future plans for 1Passwd and beyond?
Dave: We love 1Passwd and are proud of the great reviews it has received. With that said, however, we truly believe 1Passwd is no where near its true potential. We have some amazing ideas that are brewing in development right now; these should start popping up over the upcoming months. We’ve also received a lot of great ideas from our users – their feedback is what keeps us motivated.
I don’t want to tip my hand too much on the specifics as we are in a competitive field, but I can give you a hint on one of the new features. 1Passwd will soon run on a sexy new device that was mercilessly *blended* by BlendTec in a previous post on MacApper. That’s all I can say at the moment.
Marvin: Oooh, now wait just a minute! I can’t let you end on that note. It’s clear you mean the iPhone. Will it be a native app or a web 2.0 app?
Dave: OK, I can at least answer that. Our customers have made it clear that supporting the iPhone is not an option, it’s a requirement. We’ve been researching the hacks that people have done to add additional functionality to the iPhone; they’ve done some really cool things. We might someday use one of these methods to add a “native” 1Passwd app to the iPhone.
However, we currently feel that the technology is just too new and untested to use. Once the dust settles and we see Apple’s reactions to these extensions, we’ll revisit this decision. For now the best route would be to follow Apple’s guidelines and create a Web 2.0 application that provides access to all your information, directly on the iPhone.
Of course security and confidentiality are of the utmost concern here, so we’ve developed a solution that will satisfy even the most stringent security requirements. But that’s all I can say now. I’ve already said too much 
Marvin: David, thank you once again. It’s been a pleasure chatting with you.
Dave: Thank you! I hope to be back soon when I can unveil some of the cool new features we have in development.
There ya go. 1Passwd could someday run natively on your iPhone, elegantly storing your passwords. This would be the best solution because transmitting any kind of personal information wirelessly always poses security risks, even with high levels of encryption. C’mon Apple, open the iPhone for “real” applications.
In the meantime, MacApper has managed to secure early access to the 1Passwd web app for 5 lucky readers. To be in the draw, just name a feature you’d like to see on the 1Passwd web app. Competition closes August 2nd 9PM EST.
You can purchase the Mac version of 1Passwd at just $29.99 from Agile Web Solutions.
Since 1Passwd can handle secure notes, why not add a “secure photos” option? It’d be really great if you could sync photos you take with the iPhone wirelessly.
This is the BEST NEWS next to the iphone! I miss having this ability on my iphone as one of the favorite apps I had on my palm was Passwords Plus. This was because I could sync with my desktop and always have my CC#’s, membership #’s, and website passwords with me. I miss that with my iphone. So…..i want 1Passwd to fill this need. I already use 1Passwd on my mac—just have it be able to add my Credit Card info and other personal passwords and information and then let me get to it AND add info on the go. Thanks!
I would love to see integrated web based password management synced with the desktop counterpart. Web app can also expand out to syncing addresses, calendars etc.
I have been a Mac user for more than 1 year and 1Passwd is one of my favorite mac app. I agree with Frank above and hopefully they will enable secure photo feature. Also it would be good if it can user-friendly forms to store various formats of serial/activation numbers for all commercial software I have.
If the web app can be made secure and seamless enough, make sure to not limit it to the iphone only. I’d love to see something I can use in my crossplatform world of Mac, Windows, Linux and the various browsers. I’m looking hard at the iphone but don’t see the flash mem amount being enough just yet so that I can ditch my ipod and Treo 650. Another year perhaps.
Thanks for all the comments everyone. I’ll see what I can do
Cheers!
–Dave Teare
Co-author of 1Passwd
Well, you did it great on Mac. I love 1Passwd. DOn’t you think, you left out bunch of Windows users? How about bringing power of 1Passwd to Windows?
I recently had a laptop issue that caused me to consider sending my MBP to Apple for service. As part of the service process, they asked me to provide my master administrator password.
This would have unlocked my keychain and 1Password and its access to all of my financial accounts to the service tech. Not good at all. This made me consider backing up and wiping my entire hard disk prior to sending it the laptop in for service.
So, here’s my feature request:
Offer a mode that either:
a. Completely locks 1Password to all users, even the Mac OS X system administrator
b. Exports the passwords into an encrypted file and clears out the keychain entries entirely (with an easy reimport/restoration on the other end of the process)
Regards,
Steven
Great interview Marvin. I’ve had 1Passwd in my apps folder for a few months because I got it from MacHeist. I never used it, but I will now.
I got 1P originally on MacHeist and have since purchased it for myself and gotten a number of friends interested, great app! Most of my requests are related to small “bugs”, etc. that I’ve already discussed with either Dave or Roustem and they’ve been awesome at helping me and updating asap.
One thing I’m really hoping will be implemented soon is just more options for storing things like credit cards seperate from identities and app licenses. It sounds like they have a ton of new features in the works and when I get my iPhone it’ll be awesome to have 1P on there, hopefully it won’t be too much longer before they can do a real native iPhone app!
I’m already lucky enough to be getting access to the new “secret” feature so I’m greatly looking forward to help that evolve when ready
Steven,
1Passwd uses its own separate keychain which can have a different password from the standard keychain. As long as you do not select the option to store the 1Passwd keychain password in the main keychain you will keep everyone (including admins) out of your 1Passwd data.
So this feature is already there.
Michael, I just wanted to let you and other Heisters in the same situation that the version of 1P we gave out in MH was version 2.0.
We gave away many free upgrades since Heist #2, and the last free upgrade we released was version 2.3.11. I recommend that winners of Heist #2 install 1Passwd from their loot, start the app and make sure it is registered fine. Once verified, download version 2.3.11 from here:
http://1passwd.com/dist/1Passwd-2.3.11.dmg
2.3.11 represents about 5 months of development over and above version 2.0, so it is quite a huge step forward. It is worth the upgrade.
Cheers!
Dave Teare
Co-author of 1Passwd
I’m a huge fan of 1Passwd. Some of my friends on MH mentioned it, and because I had never seen it before, I went to check it out. I saw the demo video and BAM! I knew I had to buy 1Passwd. I didn’t even test it out. I just hit ‘Buy’. I certainly haven’t been disappointed.
I recently even bought another 1Passwd license, about 5 minutes after I got an email about Carl’s birthday promo, just so I can get the beta of my1Passwd. I’m sure it’ll be great.
I think the killer feature for any password management program like 1Passwd is identity control. It is increasingly important to protect one’s personal identity online, and as a result we need to create many different identities with various levels of personal information. For instance, my bank requires accurate information, while posting on online forums I can use a pseudonym, with various layers in between.
Another increasingly important feature is support for OpenID. I think OpenID will become increasingly important over the next few years, but it won’t solve all the problems addressed by software like 1Passwd, so it would be good to have a website/software package that helps manage our OpenID identities.
Finally, I share some information with family members or members of workgroups, etc. and it is important to keep that information synced across our various password databases. For this reason, I think there should be some way to mark individual entries as shared with other users in a trusted network.
I’d like to see a display of the last-used date for each password, along with the ability to sort password entries by the last date used. This would help assure me that my privacy has not be compromised.
I absolutely love 1Passwd! My wife is constantly entering all sorts of on-line contests, and it’s so simple to use 1Passwd’s “Identity” feature set to enter all of the relevant data quickly on so many different sites.
My only caveat for it is I wish it integrated with a stronger encrypted database – like Data Gaurdian or even something like Exces – to ensure that the creidt card data and other things critical to ID theft (that I leave off my computer as much as possible) were that much more protected in case of computer theft or hacking.
Oh, and Techslacker – 1Passwd already has great app (reader) for the Palm!
David, thanks for posting that last free update to the MAcheist version. You guys rock!
I love 1Passwd! When I read the teaser about what was to come for 1Passwd, I thought it would let me gain access to my 1Passwd entries from the web. It sounds like this may only be for the iPhone, but I’m hoping it will be for any web device!
Sometimes I’m at a friend’s house, or visiting family, etc. and I want to check my bank account, or purchase something online .. it would be so fantastic to be able to access my 1Passwd from another computer. That said, I have no idea of how that could be made secure .. but I’ll leave that up to you guys!
Again, fantastic app! And yes, thanks for putting it up on MacHeist!
One of the most important apps I currently have.
(Bought a license a couple of months ago)
Keep up the great work!
I would love to see an easy way to sync my password file to a SFTP server as well as a better (more secure) way to take my passwords to a non-Mac (IE a standalone Windows program that will run off a flash key and only reveal one password at a time – that way all my passwords aren’t exposed at the same time).
Roboform is the password manager of choice for Windows and many of us will (presumably) be switching to 1password for iphone. An import utility converting Roboform to 1password would be most welcome. (I assume we will not need a Mac to use the iPhone version.)
A web interface similar to Appmarks.com would be most welcome. Favicons could be used as icons. In the alternative, the two sites should be compatible.
Great job guys, keep it up.
Feature request: import/export function
I do not currently use 1Passwd because I want it to go to websites and update my passwords *for me*. As in, tell 1Passwd that my eBay password is not secure enough and it will go and interface with eBay, make a new random password of 18+ characters and then automatically use the new password the next time I login. If you can do that as a web app, then call this a feature request!
Heh…
iPhone integration…
I often run into the problem that when I fill out a form to create a new account on a site 1Password asks me if I want to save the information. When it saves the info, it also saves other fields which interfere with logging in for future sessions. There should be an option to either use the current behavior or store only the username and password so that when you try to log in it works as it should.
Dave sez; “Sometimes Quicksilver would crash on me and I would feel paralyzed. How can you open QuickSilver when your app launcher crashes? As far as I know all you can do is reboot. *Chuckles*.”
Errr… you can put it in the Dock:))), no? Should save you some reboots.
)
Btw, I’m new 1passwd user and man did it ease my pain
) Thanks.
my feature request is to not have to click a button to activate 1Passwd on a webpage… i wish it would recognize the login requirement (it seems to already know that when you click on the button on the browser) so it should just go ahead and submit the password automatically without me having to click.
Actually there is one simple thing U’d like to see in 1passwd and that is plain text export function.
Regards.
ErichD, I’m aware of the reader. My main point was the desire to have something that can work across many platforms like Mac, Windows, Linux, and the iphone.
A web version certainly intrigues me a bit if it can work with any platform.
Thanks to all for some great feedback. The competition is now officially closed. We’ll be announcing the winners shortly, so stay tuned.
Can’t wait to see 1Passwd integrated with the iPhone. I currently use the iPhone for a lot of web-based stuff (corporate email, various POP mail accounts) and have passwords that incorporate special characters. Even though I love the iPhone, the keyboard is a bit clunky, especially as far as passwords are concerned, since Apple’s suggestion logarithms don’t apply. So I end up with a lot of fat fingering. 1Passwd on the iPhone would do away with that.
Winners? It’s been almost a week since this was over.
Have the winners been drawn? I can’t wait.
[...] juicy iPhone news and beta invites that you’ll certainly want to know about if you use 1Passwd.read more | digg [...]
[...] recently held an interview with 1Passwd co-author Dave Teare, where he revealed some tasty information relating to their [...]
I can’t see
I posted this comment in the “Beta Winners” thread; for completeness I’ll repost it here.
Wow, it has been a month since I posted about my1Password! Time sure flies when you’re coding!
As I mentioned last time, the my1Password website release requires 1Password version 2.5 to be released first. 2.5 has taken longer than we expected, and I apologize for that.
The good news, however, is we are much closer now. Version 2.5 is now in Beta, and initial feedback has been very positive.
Best of all, the 2.5 Beta included a secret new feature: sync to iPhone! You can use the “Sync to iPhone” feature to create a Safari bookmarklet that contains all your encrypted 1Password data. This data can only be viewed once the correct Access Code is given, and all the decryption happens within Safari. Here is a post that details how it works, along with plenty of screenshots:
http://switchersblog.com/2007/10/05/iphone-password-manager.html
You can see we tried to make it look like a native iPhone app, even though it is actually a web page. The 1Password for iPhone bookmarklet does not require any hacks, works on both iPhone and iPod Touch, and does not require an Internet connection. This is possible because everything is stored as a Safari bookmarklet, including all your data, images, and code required to run the application.
You might wonder if this “competes” with the my1Password web site; after all the my1Password site will support iPhone as well. While there is some overlap, we have completely different visions for my1Password and 1Password for iPhone. The my1Password infrastructure will allow us to do many more advanced things. For example, my1Password will eventually allow you to create a new secure note on your iPhone, which will then automatically sync back to 1Password on your Mac.
Cheers!
–Dave Teare (Co-author of 1Password)
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This is a great program, but as many have stated already… Where’s the Windows Version ? We can’t close our eyes to a big chunk of the market…
May I step in here? A market can be ignored when it’s dwindling.
That aside, .Mac syncing doesn’t work with Windows anyway.
[...] post by Google Inc. « First iPhone 3rd Party GUI App Compiles – Slashdot iSkin Revo Protects Your [...]
I just wanted to update everyone about the special my1Password prize for all the great ideas.
The my1Password web service was significantly delayed by the huge changes we made in the 1Password 2.5 code base, and then it was completely thrown off track when Leopard started shipping. Leopard stretched us to our limits and we had to neglect my1Password for a while.
Thankfully things have returned to normal now and my1Password is back on track! Today I will be sending out the early access invitations to all the winners.
Cheers!
–Dave Teare
Co-author of 1Password
[...] 1Password Why, it’s our old friend 1Password! We’ve reviewed this app, interviewed the developer and even organized a giveaway for 5 lucky readers. Being such a unique and intuitive app, it has [...]
The Federal Trade Commission has a website devoted to Identity Theft. It contains information for consumers. I would review that site if you think that you may be a victim of identity theft.
[...] had an interview last week with Marvin Sum over at MacApper. We discussed how Agile Web Solutions was founded, how 1Passwd was [...]
[...] read more | digg story [...]
As a 1Passwd and RoboForm user I can only say that I prefer 1Passwd, and I truly wish it would be available for Windows (and Linux if possible) and that it would be able to run of a USB drive …
Would be nice to have a way to sync with Windows. Love the iPhone and may one day have a Mac, but until then…