Electron

I have been a user and advocate for 1Password for about ten years now. I started using it because Mac users I respected raved that it was not just a good password manager, but a proper Mac app written by people who care about Mac apps. I got friends and family members, and people who work for an organization I run so I get to choose some of their software, to use it because it was a proper Mac app written by people who clearly cared about Mac apps. On more than one occasion, I have described it as "the BBEdit of password managers" which is the highest praise I can give a piece of software.

Version 8 has thrown all that away. While 1Password 8 may run on the Mac, it isn't a proper Mac app. It does not work or feel like a Mac app. And that's heartbreaking.

There are two kinds of people who use Macs: Mac owners who just got a Mac because they like their iPhone or the only computer company they really know about is Apple and who spend most of their time in Chrome, and Mac users who prefer the Mac because we recognize that proper Mac software is better. The UI paradigm is better. The way the software works is better. If the same program is on Mac and Windows, and properly written to the UI standards of Mac and Windows, the Mac version will be better even if their functionality is exactly the same.

Not all Mac software is good Mac software. I mean, not even all of Apple's software is good Mac software, and that's always been the case: in the 1990s, Apple had a lot of software that dragged System 6 UI elements into Systems 7, 8, and 9, in the 2000s Apple had a lot of Carbon software that never quite felt right on OS X, and in the last few years the first generation of Catalyst apps were... subpar.

But good Mac software? Good Mac software made the whole thing worth it. The more expensive hardware. The (declining over time) compatibility issues. Apple's often-paranoid behavior. Apple's own insufficiently adherent software. All of that was beside the point when you could use good Mac software.

And 1Password was very good Mac software. It felt like it was born on the Mac, written by Mac users, and meant for Mac users. That's why I bought multiple versions over the years, and signed up for the subscription model without blinking an eye. You made good Mac software, so of course I'll give you a few dollars a month or year to keep that going.

And then you dropped this beta of 1Password 8 on us. This is not good Mac software. It does not feel like Mac software.

In 1Password 8, you can't move the preferences window around — that is not how Mac software is supposed to work.

In 1Password 8, the close button for the preferences window is on the left — that is now how Mac software is supposed to work.

In 1Password 8, the menubar, which should be the hub from which you can do anything you need to do in an app, has been completely neutered to the point that you can't even create a new item from it — that is not how Mac software is supposed to work.

In 1Password 8, you now create new items from a drop down menu inside the window, but that menu isn't a real menu and if the window is too small it cuts off and you have to scroll the blasted menu — that is not how Mac software is supposed to work.

In 1Password 8, collapsing and expanding sidebar items is not animated it just happens — that is not how Mac software is supposed to work.

In 1Password 8, drag and drop appears badly broken in the same way its broken in all Electron apps — that is not how Mac software is supposed to work.

In 1Password 8, the user cannot change or add shortcuts for menubar commands (what paltry few there are) — that is not how Mac software is supposed to work.

Will any of these things, and the dozens of other foreign behaviors and UI weirdness, be fixed before the final release?

I get that SwiftUI isn't where you need it to be yet. I get that Catalyst is something of a pain. But I cannot for a minute believe that apps produced through either of these APIs would be as foreign as this... thing you've produce is. This is not proper Mac software. A ported iPad app that felt and worked like an iPad app would still be more Mac-like than this RAM-hungry, disk-swallowing thing.

1Password 8 works on a Mac, but it doesn't work like a Mac.

AgileBits used to be a company that cared about that. Instead, post-VC money, it seems y'all are now a company that responds to complaints about 1Password 8 on Twitter with "the app is built on Rust!" as though user angst is about the back end and not the wholly, completely deficient user experience of this app.

Electron apps are almost all garbage. Because they encourage people to build lowest-common-denominator UIs. Which is fine on Linux or Windows, where even the best UIs are pretty bad. But Electron, in my experience, cannot be used to build even a remotely Mac-like application. You certainly haven't achieved that here.

I use a Mac because I want my software to be Mac-like. I'm not alone in that regard. I use 1Password because until version 8 it was Mac-like. Even version 7, with its unreliable Safari extension and general bugginess, meets the Mac-like standard.

I won't pay for un-Mac-like software. I certainly won't subscribe to it. I know my subscription, the subscriptions of the family members who just use what I tell them to use, and the subscriptions of the employees whose software stacks I control don't amount to much — and in comparison to the VC cash raining down on you, it amounts to nothing. Yet in the end, if this is what the future of 1Password on the Mac is, you'll lose more than some subcriptions: you're going to lose the advocacy of people like me, and people like the Mac users who recommended your app to me.

That might not ding your bottom line, but it would likely turn your homepage brag about being "the world's most-loved password manager" into a lie.