Why is iCloud sync no longer available in the web store version of 1Password 5?
1Password 5 is a free update for all users of 1Password 4, bringing a fresh design and tons of improvements. Among those improvements is a new, much more reliable iCloud sync. The new sync system is a huge step up, but it comes with a big caveat: it only works in the the Mac App Store version of 1Password.
Officially, that’s always been the case. Full iCloud support has been restricted to App Store apps from day one, and 1Password is no exception. When we added iCloud sync to 1Password 4, we had to come up with an unsupported workaround in order to bring the feature to the web store version. Our solution relied on manually writing files to an iCloud container, and was far from pretty.
Unfortunately, our workaround was doomed to remain just that. The web store version of 1Password still has no access to Apple’s official iCloud APIs, and there has never been any guarantee that our ad-hoc solution would work across major software updates. We’ve held out as long as we could for the sake of supporting our web store users, but the writing has been on the wall for a while.
With the move to CloudKit in 1Password 5, our workaround is no longer possible. That leaves us with two options: leave web store users behind and make 1Password 5 exclusive to the Mac App Store, or release the web store update to 1Password 5 without iCloud sync. In that light, the right choice is a no-brainer.