Question Starting to get concerned about Agile's focus

wolfneuralnet

I woke up this morning to download the newly available app that was going to fix all the problems with the iPad version.



There is no announcement about this in the forums (wouldn't that be logical?) so i don't know where the new features are listed.



While trying to figure out what is updated, I notice that the major issue that needed fixing, the 1password interaction with Safari, does not work, or no one from the company has posted how to make it work yet.



Then I notice that the new feature, Dropbox syncing, is not working for many people.



So now we're in a situation where the old bugs don't get fixed properly, and every new feature introduces new ones?



Maybe its time to take step back and look at the organization here. In the past year, Agile has gone from one of my favorite software companies to one that appears totally disorganized from the outside, and that makes me afraid to download the updates from the app store.



For something as important as a password manager, I expect a level of competence far above that of other developers. Slow down, and get these thing right before releasing them, or open up your beta group.



Just my somewhat frustrated thoughts on the current state of the mobile apps.

JudiS217

I'm sitting here while my newly updated iPhone Pro app downloads a conflict copy for 1300+ items on first sync with Dropbox. It looks like it's all old stuff of items I long deleted. Joy. Not seeing any ill effects in the desktop app so far, but who knows. Hoping this is a one-time issue. I've been using DropBox sync to sync to 2 computers desktop version for a while now.



So on the one hand, I agree with you 100%. The unfinished Chrome extension is buggy and ignored because they're focusing on the mobile apps and then those aren't working as well as they should. What's up with that?



But on the other hand, I also suspect it's a disconnect between the restrictions that Apple places on their developers and the agile way that the Agile folks work. I've been using Desktop 1Password since 2006. And it's exactly what I love about the desktop version's development process that is so frustrating on the iPhone.



There's a new beta constantly on the desktop version for every little thing. Bug fixes happen right alongside feature additions and it's all fixed and tweaked in little steps. When a new feature is being developed and bugs are being fixed, it's not uncommon to have a new version almost daily. That just doesn't work on the iPhone/iPad. Changes have to be made in big strokes, fixes can't be fixed for weeks because of Apple's store approval policies. The beta pool has to be private and very small.



So to my mind either the Agile Web Development folks change the way they work or they stop developing for the Apple mobile devices or we just fasten our seatbelts and hang on for the bumpy ride. Apple's certainly not changing anything.

sandman4sure

I think for the iPhone and iPad they should at least use a beta team and test the app before an update.

Because then you would have seen that it just doesn't work on a 3G device.

JudiS217

They probably do use a beta team, but it's probably too small to find the problems they do when they can make their betas public as they're used to.



And for the record I have an iPhone 3GS and while it's being a little flaky, it is working so "it just doesn't work on a 3G device" is not an accurate statement.

sandman4sure

[quote name='JudiS217']They probably do use a beta team, but it's probably too small to find the problems they do when they can make their betas public as they're used to.



And for the record I have an iPhone 3GS and while it's being a little flaky, it is working so "it just doesn't work on a 3G device" is not an accurate statement.[/QUOTE]



It doesn't work on the iPhone 3G is what I mean. It seems to work on the 3GS

thightower

Yep we do have a beta team but Apple heavily limits the number allowed.

sandman4sure

50 devices, right? And no iPhone 3G between those 50?

thightower

Nope I am on a 3g myself and never saw the flood of problems that popped up last night. For me and my testing it was like a magic bullet. So I dunno. I am running 4.01 on my 3g.



Standard apple developer accounts have 100 slots but each device for testing takes up 1 slot ie. a iphone 4 one slot, ipad one slot, 3g one slot thats just for one tester. They get gone very quickly.

Benad

thightower, is it possible that the data migration path going through the beta updates "fixes" the metadata in a way that you don't see any problem, but when doing a single-step upgrade from stable to stable versions the software starts crashing/breaking with unexpected data values?



Since the upgrade I've done on iPhone 3GS 4.0.1, Mac and Windows, the Windows version stopped working (i.e. can't view items), the 1Password anywhere HTML file don't let you view any item except plain login items, and the iPhone Dropbox sync keeps uploading everything every time. This is just plain bad regression testing that 5 minutes of testing on the "plain migration path" would have shown.



The code that parses/analyses/saves the data must be much more permissive. I can't believe that all 3 versions of 1Password can simply crash (rather than showing some error text) tripping up on its own data it updated on its own.