Announcing Secrets 4!
The next major version of Secrets, the biggest update yet, is coming soon. Read on to learn more and how you can get a preview on the new version.
New Engine, Familiar Experience
The entire storage layer of Secrets has been rewritten. This new version was designed to work better with iCloud and provide a more robust syncing experience. Secrets still uses the Sodium library for most of its cryptographic functions. Including for everything sent to iCloud.
No more passphrases… if you don’t want to. With almost all Apple devices being sold today including a Secure Enclave, Secrets 4 leverages its features to give you more flexible options on how you’d prefer to unlock your data. Want to use just Face ID? Sure. Want to use a passphrase or Touch ID? Yep. Want to use Face ID and a passphrase? You can do that too! You can even have different unlock methods on each device and have them all syncing with iCloud.
Make no mistakes, your data is still encrypted with a 256-bit key. This key is protected by the system’s Secure Enclave, cannot leave the device, and is gated by the unlocking mechanisms mentioned above (among others).
Trusted Devices
So far you’d always have to type in your passphrase to sync a new device. Your passphrase actually had to be the same on all devices for syncing to work. But if Secrets 4 can be used without a passphrase, how does that work?
New in Secrets 4 is the notion of a trusted device. The first device that sync with iCloud become the root trusted device. When you want to sync a new device, it will ask for authorization from an existing trusted device. This process is similar to the pairing mechanism in Remote Secret Requests.
Shared Vaults
The flagship feature of Secrets 4. One the main reasons behind our biggest refactor yet.
You can now create different vaults in Secrets:
- Local: With local vaults your data never leaves your device.
- iCloud: Data stored in these vaults is sync with all your trusted devices.
- Shared: Still stored on iCloud, but you can invite any other Secrets user to read and write items to these vaults
Note shared vaults are completely built on top of iCloud. We still don’t run any servers. There’s no account to setup when you use Secrets. You just open the app and start using it.
Paid Upgrade
Secrets was release in May 2016. If you bought the first version you had 7 years of free updates. It’s time for a paid upgrade.
Rest assured, Secrets 4 is not moving to a subscription. In fact, there will be a considerable discount on launch day for all existing Secrets 3 users. No matter if you bought Secrets Premium this year or 3 years ago. So make sure you are subscribed to our newsletter so you don’t miss it. After launch, you can still benefit from upgrade pricing at a smaller discount rate.
Prefer a subscription? There will be an option for you too.
Public Beta
Interested in helping test this new version? You can join the beta TestFlight group here! But please be aware this is a beta… crashes, bugs and general weirdness is to be expected. Backup your data, try it out and let me know you what you think.