1P_Ben @MrRooni roustem I understand a part for you deciding to go for Electron on the front end was so that the Apps could all look and feel as close as possible to each other across the various different platforms. Can I ask, seriously, who actually asked for this? I've done a quick and dirty survey of my non technically bless friends - not a single one of them expects or wants Apps to behave the same way across all platforms. All of them expect, and are happy to accept that each platform will make Apps looks and behave differently. Shouldn't the focus being on using the best available to technologies and frameworks to make each App feel, look and function the best for its respect platform, even if that means it isn't exactly consistent across each? I'm just struggling to understand this design decision, and it makes me sad because it really feels like an absolute betrayal for one of the key things you used to stand for, having the best native Mac Apps possible. Using Electron is completely at odds with having the best native Mac App possible, because there are other, better frameworks out there. 1Password Version: Not Provided Extension Version: Not Provided OS Version: Not Provided

Hello gussic, It is tough to say that a native app is better than using electro for 1Password development for many reasons. 1Password is a cross-platform application that not only works on Windows or Mac, but it should also work on all available platforms, so it would be a tremendous advantage when they share the same source code. We can fix a bug faster, data can work across devices more effectively, and we can spend more time fixing and improving 1Password instead of dividing our resources to different departments to work on various native apps. There is usually difficulty communicating between teams since they use different technologies and that will make an issue takes much longer to resolve. There are excellent apps that use Electro such as Slack, VS code (One of the best code editors if not the best), Discord, WordPress are just a few of them and the list I believe will keep being bigger over time as more and more apps require to work cross platforms. The development process of a native app will inarguably cost more for much less when we develop an app that must work on many platforms. We can't expect to spend resources to develop native 1Password 8 for Mac, Windows, iOS, Android separately and being effective. If we can't focus our resources, we will fall behind. We did not just deciding to go for Electron without any researches and reasons. We guarantee that it fits our development focus to make great app with better performance, user friendly before making such decision. Please give it a try to see how it works. Best regards, Nhat Nguyen. https://support.1password.com/

You do realize that those listed apps (except for VS Code as I've never used it) are the butt end of so many memory hog jokes? That we have sent people to the moon with much less? Slack was my first introduction to Electron and showed me how slow and bloated it makes an app. 1.5GB of memory usage is on the low end of memory use for Slack!

Nhat_Nguyen Electron does make you guys earlier to develop, but makes us, the customers, much harder.

Nhat_Nguyen 1Password is a cross-platform application that not only works on Windows or Mac, but it should also work on all available platforms, so it would be a tremendous advantage when they share the same source code. We can fix a bug faster, data can work across devices more effectively, and we can spend more time fixing and improving 1Password instead of dividing our resources to different departments to work on various native apps. There is usually difficulty communicating between teams since they use different technologies and that will make an issue takes much longer to resolve. I appreciate this, but it isn't as good for the end user, because we end up with a compromised experience on each platform, rather than them all being the best they can be for their respective platforms. There are excellent apps that use Electro such as Slack, VS code (One of the best code editors if not the best), Discord, WordPress are just a few of them and the list I believe will keep being bigger over time as more and more apps require to work cross platforms. Sorry, none of those are excellent. They are all bloaty, hot, resource hogs that don't feel like native macOS Apps. The development process of a native app will inarguably cost more for much less when we develop an app that must work on many platforms. We can't expect to spend resources to develop native 1Password 8 for Mac, Windows, iOS, Android separately and being effective. If we can't focus our resources, we will fall behind. I respectfully disagree, you wouldn't have merged the code base if there wasn't a cost and efficiency saving for you in the long run. If the native apps are more expensive to make that's fine - given the price you charge, that's what you should be doing, not compromising the experience by using sub-standard frameworks such as Electron. We did not just deciding to go for Electron without any researches and reasons. We guarantee that it fits our development focus to make great app with better performance, user friendly I'm sure you had your reasons, what i am saying is that those reasons were flawed, or not particularly customer centric. I'm sorry to be blunt, but your guarantee has already been breached - it is less user friendly than before, and arguably less performant when you consider it is a massive resource hog. Please give it a try to see how it works. I have, and it is absolutely appalling, it looks swish, but it is not user friendly, it makes the computer run hot and hogs resources.

Nhat_Nguyen What you posted is exactly what I say. Your decisions are all based on business and money. It's all about how you can have cost savings and make an ok app that works across all platforms. You started with the Mac and now you are saying that all platforms are equal. That's ok as long as you give each platform the love it deserves. Using a cross platform framework is the easiest way to go for you, but for us Mac users, this is a no go. I am glad I cancelled my subscription. I want to have nothing to do with a company that thinks and works this way. Money is the first priority for you. Good for you, but sorry, this is a mistake. When you see how many people have cancelled their subscriptions, then maybe you will understand your mistake. Money does talk!

Cross platform design philosophy | 1Password Community

Former Member
4 years ago
cryptochrome

I respectfully disagree on the RAM point. Several major vendors, Apple included, still sell laptops and desktops that only have 8GB of RAM, the former of which can’t be upgraded. Furthermore, there’s quite a lot of people who are still using old laptops with only 8GB of soldered RAM because those machines still meet those users’ requirements, making spending on upgrades a dicey value proposition (especially with how processing power has plateaued in the past decade).

Personally, yes, I won't buy anything with less than 16GB, and have preference for a 32GB+. But I’m a software engineer and tech enthusiast, and as such I’m in a very tiny bubble. The average individual isn’t so well off in terms of hardware, and because of that I do what I can to make sure the software I work on is finely crafted and doesn’t require more resources than it absolutely has to, because a few hundred megs here and a few hundred megs there pile up fast.
cryptochrome
Occasional Contributor
4 years ago
Don't be ridiculous.
Former Member
4 years ago

You wouldn't judge a newborn by its cooking abilities, would you.
Well, if the newborn had no eyes and hands, then I would know that life will be hard for it. This is the state of 1Password8 on the Mac.
cryptochrome
Occasional Contributor
4 years ago

Unfortunately for those of us using the preview on Mac for the moment, it's less "other platforms getting the features that were Apple-native" and more "stripping the Mac-native version to match the others."

I don't know how you came to this impression, but that is NOT what is happening. You're looking at an early preview that doesn't have all the features yet, but my understanding is that there will be feature parity with previous versions and then some.

You wouldn't judge a newborn by its cooking abilities, would you.
kcastill
New Contributor
4 years ago

I'm quite happy to get the features from the Apple versions over to my platforms.

I hear this, and am all for it.

Unfortunately for those of us using the preview on Mac for the moment, it's less "other platforms getting the features that were Apple-native" and more "stripping the Mac-native version to match the others."
Former Member
4 years ago
One could open up the arc a little further: As some people have probably noticed, we are slowly burning our asses off. One of the ways out of the dilemma is NOT to waste more energy. I've been wondering for a while now what all these Electron-like apps and other JS hell apps consume more energy than their efficiently programmed counterparts.

Billions of computers and servers operating as if resources were free. I studied technical computer science. I used to develop software for devices with little memory and CPU. I dare say that all those who bluntly pull thousands of node/whatever dependencies into their code can't really develop SW. They can nail together prefabricated boards, but that's about it.

I had compared a few Electron apps to their native counterparts a while back. The bottom line was that the resource consumption was at least 3 to 5 times and even up to 10 times higher. Be it CPU, processes/threads (this also costs resources), RAM and battery. Not only do the apps themselves consume more battery, you also need more and more RAM - and RAM, oh wonder, needs more energy.

There are some projects out there that are also multiplatform. They use e.g. Java or C/C++ as a core and marry this with a corresponding GUI on the respective platforms. Like Cyberduck, Transmission or Handbrake, for example.
cryptochrome
Occasional Contributor
4 years ago

I love all the Agilebits employees with burner accounts now.

First of all, stop making dumbfounded accusations. If you search my previous posts on this forum you will realize quickly that your comment was pretty idiotic.

Second, saying that the sole differentiator of 1P was UI polish just shows how little you know about password managers in general and just how exceptional 1P's security architecture is compared to other password managers. And that's what you actually should be concerned about, not fancy looks.

I am a security engineer in my professional career and I chose 1P solely for what it does, not for how it looks. Just to add to my previous post to give some more context.
Former Member
4 years ago
I love all the Agilebits employees with burner accounts now.

1Password's sole differentiator between LastPass, Dashlane, and Bitwarden has been how polished their apps are on Mac and iOS. If you toss that to the side, you might as well use a cheaper (LastPass) or more open and secure (Bitwarden) alternative.
cryptochrome
Occasional Contributor
4 years ago
I welcome the unified code base. I could not care less whether the app "feels" like a fancy native Apple app. I care about progression, faster bug fixes and a working product that gives me the same experience and UX across all platforms. The looks of the app is irrelevant.

I am also using 1P on multiple platforms (macOS, Windows, and Android) and always felt the Windows app is lacking severely in user-friendliness (1P mini on Windows is an abomination compared to 1P mini on the Mac, to name just one example).

As for Electron being a memory hog... It's 2021. You should (and most likely have) a machine with at least 16 GB of RAM. Obsessing over Electron is manufactured outrage, nothing more. I run multiple Electron apps on my machine side by side on a daily basis (stuff like Discord, Slack) and never had any issues in terms of memory or other resources. Google Chrome, in its native macOS iteration, is a far heavier app than any of the Electron apps I use.

So yea, I asked for this and I think it's about time this finally happened. It means faster version iterations, faster bug fixes, faster innovation and progression for 1P going forward. Something we will all benefit from.
dserodio
Occasional Contributor
4 years ago

I use a Mac because I care about a consistent user experience across apps, not just within each app across platforms.

Me too. If I were to use only webapps I'd be using a Chromebook.

Very disappointed about this decision, every Electron app I've used (Slack, Discord, WhatsApp, Evernote…) is bloated and buggy. I guess 1Password is about to become of of these apps which I have to restart frequently to try and free some resources.

Just as I write this comment, Evernote is eating 49% CPU, WhatsApp using 1.7GB RAM, etc.

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