Given that an aim was to reduce the number of different versions of 1Password that the company had to maintain, though, doing two Mac ones proved untenable. One written in SwiftUI that targeted the latest operating systems and another using web UI that allowed us to cover older OSes." "Ultimately we decided for a two-prong approach," continued. "The decision of how to build 1Password 8 for macOS was probably the most complicated one we had to make," wrote 1Password's Michael Fey in a blog post. But it has caused consternation among Mac users. It's part of a plan to make the forthcoming 1Password 8 use the same codebase across all platforms, meaning all features are on every device. I only wish it were possible to do this without requiring the amount of memory necessary for an Electron app.1Password 8 for Mac promises improvements, but will be based on the unpopular Electron platformĪgilebits, the developer behind password management app 1Password, has decided to move its macOS app to Electron. The software might not run as well as if it was written negative for the older versions of macOS, but it does streamline the development process. Believe it or not, quite a few users have older Macs that don’t support SwiftUI apps. SwiftUI, after all, only supports macOS 10.15 and later. For older versions, the developers would create a web-based app.Įlectron is web-based, so the macOS version of 1Password 8 runs even on older Macs. For the latest versions of macOS, Agilebits would develop 1Password 8 using the SwiftUI toolkit. To allow compatibility with as many versions of macOS as possible, the developers were building two apps for one operating system. The idea behind moving 1Password to Electron came about for the sake of reducing the number of apps Agilebits needed to maintain. The Reason to Move 1Password 8 to Electron Rather than a consistent look-and-feel to the software, if you ran 1Password on Windows, it worked differently than it would on a Mac. The end result was a suite of apps for different platforms that lack a similar interface. Those developers were given the file format specifications, shown how the apps worked on the Mac and iPhone, and then allowed free rein to create the native app for their respective platforms. Since then, the company has expanded to include Windows and Android versions, hiring a separate developer for each platform. When Apple announced the iPhone SDK, that same team moved on and created the iPhone app. Understanding the history of the software helps demonstrate why Agilebits made this choice.Ī very small team of four people built the first version of 1Password, as a Mac app. One Software, Many AppsĪgilebits’ Michael Fey explains in a blog post how this decision came about. They have just made a decision to use a framework that, while requiring more memory, does allow the same code base to run on older versions of macOS. But, this does not mean that the developers are abandoning the Mac. Yes, it is disconcerting that the developer is abandoning native development to expand more versions of the macOS operating system. Yes, this software got its roots on the Mac. This is the argument that being lost in all of the crying and shouting. To have an app that requires the chromium browser to be running while you were trying to use the app is problematic. If you were dealing with an older Mac, it probably doesn’t have a lot of memory. That is the reason many of us are scratching our heads over the decision to move to Electron. Nonetheless, it’s pretty clear that the 1Password move to Electron is set in stone. The problem with this framework is that apps using it tend to require much more of your system resources, especially memory, than native ones. Well-used apps like Slack, WhatsApp Desktop, Microsoft Teams, and Discord all make use of Electron. Apps written using Electron use the same codebase whether the user runs macOS, Windows, or Linux. Using Javascript, HTML, and CSS, Electron allows coders to build their apps like web pages. What Is Electron, and Why Is It Problematic?Įlectron allows developers to build cross-platform apps without the difficulty and expense of writing native code for each. The 1Password move to Electron seems like a really bad idea, but it might actually be the best call. As a third option, Agilebits could move the app to a platform called Electron. The developers could create two macOS versions of the app to work on older Macs. Agilebits was faced with a tough decision. Users are objecting very heavily to a decision that the developers made. The latest version of the 1Password password manager is now in beta.
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