Concerns About 1P 8 for Mac from a Web and Software Developer

roustem: I don’t generally have a problem with the choice of Electron, but I believe that it’s important to understand that your customers have in part chosen to use 1Password because it is a “Mac-assed Mac app”. I’ve been with you guys since version 1 and you were posting on the Switcher’s Blog, because I switched about the same time. You and I have probably met at TACOW meeting a few years back (I know I’ve met Dave). I also have family that I’ve put on my 1Password Family account (as soon as it was available and through several updates) because it makes so much sense, and they’re on everything except Linux.

Mac and iOS users tend to be more finicky, but in the end, everyone wants a program that works like what they know every other program is supposed to work like on their platform. It’s one of the reason that Swing failed so badly. Electron apps, without a lot of work, tend to work like Electron apps. Which is to say that they work like badly implemented Windows or Linux applications and it just shows up even worse on the Mac because nothing on the Mac works like that. Most people hate on Slack’s app because it’s lazy and is clearly very little different than a wrapped webpage. (I hate on Slack because they really don’t understand their customers’s needs and the Slack app reflects that perfectly.)

I believe that it is possible to make a Mac-assed Mac app with Electron, but it’s going to have to be something that you commit to. You can get almost all the way there by looking for things that make 1Password feel like a webpage, Slack, or even VSCode (which is the least Electron-feeling app that I use) and explicitly doing things differently on the Mac.

These to me, would include:

• Ensure there’s nothing glaringly obvious like the ⌘-Alt-C as found by jaysee_au.
• Stop making the main window work like a webpage. This has multiple parts, but for me it still comes back to the zoom controls. In Mac apps, ⌘- and ⌘+ don’t change the size of the chrome , but instead change the size of the content. When things that look like chrome resize, it breaks your expectations. Music doesn’t work that way. Safari doesn’t work that way. The size of chrome is controlled by system settings. Some Mac-assed Mac apps do have a sort of “spacing” setting so that you can have a “compact” view, but zoom should only affect content.
• On most Mac apps, there’s no such thing as a modal. Preferences, etc. pop up as separate windows so that you can change them, possibly see interactive changes to how the preferences affect the main window, etc. They don’t get in the way of your use of the application. (Preferences sometimes have modal sheets that pop up. See Safari and what happens when you look at all cookies in the privacy tab.) Sometimes preferences are control sheets instead. I have found four “modals” so far that active get in the way of using 1Password:
  • preferences
  • add a new device
  • sign in to a new account
  • manage collections

None of these should be blocking to the use of 1Password, and as such should either be separate draggable windows (most Mac-like), sheets (second most Mac-like), or tabs (least Mac like, but at least non-blocking).

• Fix the biometry prompts so that they come up immediately on display launch without launching the full application, when required.
• Make sure that almost all actions that can be done can also be done through the menu and that the important ones have keyboard shortcuts (Lock — which I believe used to be ⌘⌥L does not have a shortcut and it’s hidden in a menu in the vault/collection list—the what?); the menus are really empty compared to previous versions of 1Password.
• Don’t have menus that aren’t obviously menus. I’m speaking of the menu items below the list of accounts / collections:

• Make sure that everything that should be chrome is properly recognized as such by Accessibility mechanisms. Make sure that it handles all of the settings at least as well as the native versions did. I can’t give as much guidance on this, as I do not currently require accessibility adjustments, but your comment on liking the zoom controls points me to this, as there are ways built into MacOS to improve overall accessibility without relying on Stupid Web View Tricks. This is one of the biggest points of being a Mac-assed Mac App, and something that 1Password has done very well in the past that I do not believe Electron apps do very well…if at all.

• Allow manual reorganization of the main grouping mechanisms. This isn’t as much about being Mac-assed, but it represents a fairly big structural change for me. My work account (starts with K) is sorted before my personal account (starts with z). This does not represent my interpretation of what’s important. In fact, I should be able to designate a collection as the first thing (the so-called “all accounts” view). With 1Password 7, I could unselect a number of vaults and ensure that results for them never showed up in Mini or searches unless I was in that vault. I have vaults to which I have access on my family account that I do not want showing up for results unless I select them (my parents’ vault; my wife’s vault). BTW, the last few years of 1Password 7 have taught me that ⌘0 is the “filtered all vaults” view, not “reset zoom level to default (too large)”.

As I said, I get why you’re moving to Electron. I don’t even think it’s necessarily a bad idea. But 1Password, as a multi-year recipient of Apple Design Awards, has a much higher bar to pass than the lazy management at Slack. There are a lot of people who will look at the fact that, as it stands, 1Password 8 doesn’t feel like a Mac app and decide that, as long as they are having to use something that feels like it doesn’t fit, why not go with something that doesn’t have the premium cost that 1Password has? At the moment, I’m not in that camp. But I could see myself moving that way when it comes time for 1Password 9. Right now, you have a great reputation as advocates for the Mac and deep security that also works on other platforms (not necessarily in that order). This isn’t something to spend cheaply.

Less flippantly, I'm all for a ground up re-write, but this feels clunky. I'm not even necessarily judging it on the underlying tech here, just the end result. This feels like an Apple like "re-imagine" (that's also clunky) like when Apple went from iMovie 6 -> 7 or Final Cut Pro 7 -> X. Key features ppl relied on were missing for years until Apple restored them to the new design. I really hope that AgileBits continue to support v7 for a few years, as I won't be upgrading to this version any time soon.

We are still early in the 1Password 8 lifecycle and we will work through the issues. The rewrite was quite painful to be honest but we felt that we had to do this. It was really difficult to support multiple codebases especially when we have rapid development on 1Password.com server side that requires the client apps to keep up.

1Password 7 is being supported. We just published a new beta build this week.

Features-missing-wise, I miss being able to have a local vault as my primary vault, with a single memorable password used only for local 1Password unlock, and then have my multiple cloud vaults all added to the setup each with a SUPER complex password that I can't even remember! By adding them after my non-synced local vault it means I can have a super secure cloud passwords while maintaining a memorable one for my local devices (which are only accessible after I decrypt my FileVault and log into my Mac... etc.).

I see where you are coming from but the "single password" was a big kluge. We had many users confused why they can unlock their account on 1Password.com but not the app. Also, a lot of issues with changing passwords and with removing accounts in the app.

I would argue that it is better to use the same single memorable password for all accounts. The Secret Key provides the additional protection and there is really no need to use generated passwords.

Also, pressing Option no longer seems to reveal passwords when 1Password 8 is foremost app.

The problem with "hold Option key to reveal passwords" is that it was too easy to do that accidentally. For example, you might press ⌥⇧C or something like that. We really wanted to make 1Password 8 more "shoulder-surf" ("screenshare-surf"?) friendly and it would be bad if you could reveal your passwords by accident.

I'd love to find a better way to do this.

Can I ask, seriously, what would it take for you reverse course and dump electron from the front end of the Mac App? I hate it, just even knowing it's on my computer is a worry for me.

What exactly is worrying you, gussic ? I see that fear all over the forums and Reddit and I understand some of it but I don't get the fear of web-based technologies (which we are using in 1Password 8 only to render the UI — networking, encryption, database, biometrics, system services, etc are all done in Rust and Swift). We actually had a web-based implementation of the item detail view back in 1Password 2 and it many ways I liked it more than the rigid UI we used later.

Many of the Apple's own apps are built with web technologies. There are many Mac apps but how many of them are truly great? The list is quite short and we can probably count them on one hand: OmniGroup, Panic, Fantastical. Just making an app "native" will not make it great and it is also possible to build a great user experience with web technologies.

Yeah, it's really silly that right now (1password7) they have a great product that people would be happy to continue to pay for, and yet they want to go in this other crazy direction that people don't want.

I bought my standalone license in 2018, if the company would assure me that 1password7 maintenance will continue for another 5 years I'd happily switch to a subscription even without using their cloud service. Sure I bought a license for v7 and some people would think that entitles them to use it forever, but I appreciate that software requires maintenance and I'm happy to continue to pay in order to keep it going.

Please do let me know if you find a good alternative.

@m4rkw : Thats the price (users switching to another app) Agile has to pay. And pays. It is a parts of this kind of business.
In one year nobody will complain about it, it will be history. We see it with so many other apps where similar discussion popped up - done. Like with Fantastical.
For me the chapter 1Pwd is done. I will switch, sooner or later, to a new app or, depending how it works and "feels", Apples new KeyChain/Password function.
Sad that I have no "standalone" licence of v7 (and is not available anymore).

“ I can tell you that the team working on mini v8 (now named Quick Access) is all about user experience”

Electron is the opposite of a good user experience. I think you’re going to lose a lot of good customers over this decision.

gussic

Probably $200 million from another VC company that wants good apps. Unfortunately, roustem hands are tied. He needs an enterprise app that is cheap to make.

Without wanting to be too snarky, I think this says it all. 😢

Less flippantly, I'm all for a ground up re-write, but this feels clunky. I'm not even necessarily judging it on the underlying tech here, just the end result. This feels like an Apple like "re-imagine" (that's also clunky) like when Apple went from iMovie 6 -> 7 or Final Cut Pro 7 -> X. Key features ppl relied on were missing for years until Apple restored them to the new design. I really hope that AgileBits continue to support v7 for a few years, as I won't be upgrading to this version any time soon.

Features-missing-wise, I miss being able to have a local vault as my primary vault, with a single memorable password used only for local 1Password unlock, and then have my multiple cloud vaults all added to the setup each with a SUPER complex password that I can't even remember! By adding them after my non-synced local vault it means I can have a super secure cloud passwords while maintaining a memorable one for my local devices (which are only accessible after I decrypt my FileVault and log into my Mac... etc.).

Also, pressing Option no longer seems to reveal passwords when 1Password 8 is foremost app. 🤔

Mini is a good example where we lost our way a bit with version 7, and many saw it as a downgrade from version 6.

I was shocked to hear someone (@chadseld) from 1Password above finally admit that "Mini" in v7 was a regression from v6. All through that beta season we all got told to get over it as the new design was way better and we didn't get it. So as nice as it is to hear this admission, I gotta say it doesn't feel like the lessons have been learned yet. Mini in v6 was great. How about you start there instead of trying to reimagine it again?? 😩

roustem

I also love what you said here:

Can I ask, seriously, what would it take for you reverse course and dump electron from the front end of the Mac App? I hate it, just even knowing it's on my computer is a worry for me.

There seems to be a lot of backlash about this decision, backlash that wasn't present in the same way for 1P7. Please don't go down this path, we are literally begging you.

Resizing the font with ⌘+ and ⌘- is actually my favourite part, I am able to adjust how much information is shown on the screen. And so often we had older customers who wanted to see a bigger font.

Accessibility is important, absolutely. I don’t think that interface resizing (really, font resizing in a webpage) should be bound to keystrokes, and rebinding ⌘0 to “normal size” instead of the "all vaults" (which would I guess be a “default” collections view) is a breaking change. I can just see my mom accidentally hitting ⌘- a few times and saying the fonts are too small now.

Make it visible, but not on the keyboard. IMO.