1Password is the best security software ever written for a Mac. I've been a great evangelist for the app, and I've personally recruited over a dozen customers. Their my1Password service is really slick. It lets me synchronize passwords between all my computers and access my secure passwords on any internet connected computer. So I was understandably excited to hear that they were making a native iPhone app.

In short: The new 1Password iPhone app is pretty, but that's where the usefulness ends.

Note: As of version 2.9, 1Password again includes the ability to sync with Safari bookmarklets. I use this method to auto-fill passwords on my iPhone, as I find it far more useful than the native iPhone app reviewed below. Since Agile has decided to allow both methods, you can decide for yourself which sync method to use.

Before the native app, 1Password had iPhone support via javascript bookmarklets. It was a clever little hack that allowed filling forms in MobileSafari before Apple even mentioned the possibility of third-party apps.

I understand that there are stability issues with the 1Password bookmarklets. I understand that Apple's restrictions make it difficult to extend MobileSafari the right way. Instead of addressing these issues, 1Password's native iPhone app uses their own proprietary browser. Who decided "let's roll our own replacement browser" was a good alternative?

When I'm browsing the web on my iPhone, I'm doing it in MobileSafari. When I open an email with a link I want to visit, I click it. Clicking on any link in any app on my iPhone it takes me to MobileSafari. Without 1Password support in the browser I have to close MobileSafari, open the 1Password app, enter a password or two, look up my password, open MobileSafari again, head back to the site I was using and type in my login credentials. Amazingly seamless login process, right?

I suppose they'd prefer me to browse the web in their 1Password proprietary browser. The one without bookmark syncing. The one that doesn't even have bookmark support. The one without tabs. The one without a search link. I can't even enter a url, I have to use the ones prefilled in my 1Password database... So please, remind me how this is better than the javascript bookmarklets?

If Apple had given me a mechanism for copy/paste, it might be usable, if a bit annoying, to copy and paste urls or passwords between 1Password and MobileSafari. If cookies were shared between MobileSafari and 1Password's lamesauce browser, I could at least enter credentials in 1Password then head back to a real browser to use the site. If I could bookmark sites in my desktop browser then visit those sites in 1Password's proprietary browser, that might make things easier. If 1Password actually provided a full-featured browser, I could understand using it for sites that require credentials. Unfortunately, none of these is the case.

Until these issues are resolved, I'm keeping an older copy of 1Password on my desktop so I can keep my javascript bookmarklets up-to-date. Unfortunately that means I'll miss out on the fancy new 1Password features, but I think it's worth the sacrifice.

Read more about the 1Password iPhone app here