Readit NewsI don't know if your reasoning is that looking like a web app means it is consistent with those apps, or that the apps look the same across platforms, but neither of those arguments are compelling to me. I chose the platform I am on because I think the interface is a good one that makes me more productive.
And I have never found an Electron app (or web app in general) that is as high quality as good native apps (on any platform). There are just so many compromises, and I am not even considering resource usage here. Everything just feels a little slip-shod.
> What gives me pause is how I write regularly asking for separate vaults for trivial passwords and passwords that could lead to financial ruin.
Just to clarify, what solution are you asking for? Do you want a local vault option to store sensitive passwords? Or something else?
So your margins are more important than your users’ native experiences. Got it.
I'm sorry for not being more clear earlier as to why we couldn't support two separate teams for the same platform. Hopefully this clears up any confusion.
Can you quantify the "needless development churn and hassle for both customers and our support team" in some way? Presumably, 1Password 7 and its ancestors used native macOS APIs, which meant some degree of that given you had to do something different on Windows and/or Linux. I don't know what your support team has had to endure, but as a long-time sample size of 1, I've been incredibly satisfied with the way you've designed and engineered the macOS application (and the iOS app too!) to date; I'd be hopeful that whatever tradeoffs y'all will be making moving to Electron, the "native" feel of the macOS client wouldn't be sacrificed. Is there anything you can speak to there that I should prepare for with 1Password 8?
Sure, happy to elaborate on that! Since we were rebuilding our app from the ground up, it was a significant slow-down on development to create a user interface for both Electron and SwiftUI, requiring two separate teams of platform developers for every feature we needed to implement. There were also concerns by the documentation and support teams that we would need two separate sets of instructions for many common tasks, due to small differences in layout and look between the applications. Eventually, we had to make the tough decision to focus on a single common framework for desktop. This will allow us to ship features across every single platform far quicker than we could before.
> I'd be hopeful that whatever tradeoffs y'all will be making moving to Electron, the "native" feel of the macOS client wouldn't be sacrificed.
We've tried our very best to keep the experience the same so that the transition from 7 to 8 is smooth, and from my point of view 1Password 8 feels right at home on macOS - I especially love our new translucent sidebar. That being said, this is still in an early access stage, so there are bound to be hiccups and UI issues that need to be resolved. Please let us know if you run into any problems or have suggestions on how we can improve. And thank you for being a long-time user!
Would you mind elaborating on this?
That's worse, not better.
At least being forced to by investors makes sense. The current direction of travel being voluntary means you've just got a bad nose for building security.
Could you elaborate on this?
Subscription business models and non-native apps are hallmarks of rot by VCs. Dump them!
Over the past few years, we've been working on consolidating 1Password's business logic into a single Rust-powered core that could be shared across all our apps. This has many advantages: feature consistency across platforms, faster development cycles, and better security. When building the front-end for the desktop platforms that would take advantage of this new core, Electron suited us perfectly, since we could write our UI code once and make it consistent across Linux, Windows, and Mac. We actually did build a native Mac app initially alongside the cross-platform Electron app, but we eventually decided that having two separate versions of the macOS app (one in Electron, one in SwiftUI) would cause a lot of needless development churn and hassle for both customers and our support team.
I can understand your frustrations about Electron and our subscription-based model, but I hope you find my explanation reasonable. Please stop spreading misinformation.
Why would anyone think for a second that it would be a good idea to force people to store every password for everything in their life in your cloud without an opt out?
That, even more than Electron and the subscription model (both which do bother me), is an absolutely deal breaker. I've paid for every version of 1Password since v3 in 2009, but I'm done with it now.
That being said, we are looking into gauging user interest in self-hosting. Please take a look at our survey [1] if you want to share your thoughts. Hope that helps!