On Rod’s suggestion I gave LastPass a look on Windows Mobile. I wanted to give my views of LastPass without reading Rod’s First. From my perspective it does get crazy managing all the passwords for so many different sites. Furthermore with the need for stronger and stronger passwords there is still no happy median between stronger passwords that are easy to remember. I suspect that is the issue holding people back from using real passwords vs. their wife’s birthday. The desktop component was simple enough to install and configure and for that matter so was the phone app. My overall impression is that LastPass is definitely useful but there are a bunch of things I would like to see improved.
The Interface
Man I am not sure when LastPass for Windows Phone was created but it is not very touch friendly. I really have a touch time opening up the categories for my websites. It’s just not very pretty. They Definitely can create some nice overlays and some much bigger buttons to make this easier.
The Browser
I understand the need to have a separate browser. In fact I have no issue using a different browser on my phone for sites that require a password. Seems a bit more secure to me. But there is so much wrong with the browser that I will have to break this up.
Limited by LastPass Browser
When I went to one of my registered websites I had no issue with the LastPass browser entering my login information. Even sites that I had two separate username and passwords for, worked flawlessly. But the browser itself is quite a bit stripped down. LastPass could have used a Favorites Tab so that I can just pop it up and it goes and logs into one of my registered sites. Now this can be done from the initial menu when you open the mobile app but once you get to a page there is no easy way to get back to that initial screen.
How did you miss the Zoom
My other issue with the browser is that there is no support for zooming in and out of pages. C’mon Really? This same issue extended to Android and Blackberry.
Can’t select from the Web Address drop down.
Now like any good browser when you begin to type an address your history comes up. That way you can easily click on the website if it exists in the drop down menu. This is great if it worked. My history shows up as I type but i can not select the site by tapping it. Instead I must launch the keyboard and use the arrow keys. Ouch!
Work Around
There is a another feature in the mobile app that I thought would be a good work around. When you open a registered site you can actually Copy your username or password. So I set out to browse to one of my sites with the regular browser. When it prompted or credentials I flipped screens to LastPass to copy my username then the password. This did work but I noticed a slowdown in the browser. I can no way say that this is the fault of LastPass but it was still tough to deal with.
I use my mobile phone a lot. So the concept of last pass is exciting to me because I go to a lot of sites that require passwords. The desktop app works as advertised but i would like to see it log me into applications like Outlook. I can see myself paying the yearly fee for the mobile app but with the mobile interface the way it is I couldn’t see paying for a second year unless it was improved.
