While reading Gruber’s Daring Fireball posts this week about 1Password’s new funding and enterprise pivot, he touched upon the similar fate of Dropbox, which I couldn’t have summed up better myself:
1Password’s transition reminds me, though, of an app I do use, previously loved, and now can’t wait to eliminate: Dropbox. Used to be just a folder that syncs, with lightweight Mac software that stayed out of the way and just did its job — keeping that one magic folder in sync. Now, well, it’s neither lightweight nor stays out of the way.
Myself and many others have been vocal about this for some time now, and with the rise of Apple’s built-in iCloud syncing and storage, I’ve recently been transitioning away from Dropbox. Like Gruber, all I need is a folder that syncs perfectly across devices, not a resource-heavy app that spams me with upselling notifications.
The only thing that’s keeping me with Dropbox for client work is the versioning, something which iCloud Drive doesn’t support for non-Apple app files, unless you combine it with Time Machine. But as we move into a world where many design apps have this built-in to their own cloud platform, this is less of a concern.
As for 1Password, the jury is out. I’ve found myself using Apple’s own Keychain more and more recently, and having both that and 1Password popping up on every website is irritating. The latter’s design and user-experience is still enough to keep me as a paying customer though, and one who is happy to support excellent third-party MacOS and iOS apps. For now, at least.