Re:Not important enough: 1Password abandons its native Mac app
by vmladenov on Saturday August 14, 2021 @05:56AM
(#28179451)
> The only other alternative would have been to rewrite the native client again in ObjC
They had a macOS native client that was running beautifully and was a reference example of high-quality Mac software. I can understand wanting to improve the backend but the rewriting of the UI was an entirely unforced error.
And it’s made extra clear that they’ll expend effort for a native app on a platform their business is worried about losing, so this really does feel like quite the slight. I’m certainly done with them when v7 stops working.
Re:Not important enough: 1Password abandons its native Mac app
by simonh on Saturday August 14, 2021 @06:47AM
(#28179657)
It looks like they're doing a pretty comprehensive rewrite, so sticking with the legacy client isn't an option.
Re:Not important enough: 1Password abandons its native Mac app
by brutopia on Saturday August 14, 2021 @05:53AM
(#28179438)
Swift code runs on older macs so no need to go objc
Re:Not important enough: 1Password abandons its native Mac app
by simonh on Saturday August 14, 2021 @06:43AM
(#28179644)
SwiftUI only runs on MacOS 10.15 or later.
Re:Not important enough: 1Password abandons its native Mac app
by brutopia on Saturday August 14, 2021 @07:52AM
(#28179921)
Yeah but you can do appkit with swift without having to use objc
Re:Not important enough: 1Password abandons its native Mac app
by simonh on Saturday August 14, 2021 @09:03AM
(#28180287)
That's still a big chunk of new code you need to write only to throw it away a few years later. Even with just a handful of developers for a year or two that's still millions your throwing away, meanwhile you're developing this Electron thing for the Mac anyway so using that for a few years instead has zero cost.
I'm not entirely sure this is indicative of that, I mean what were they supposed to do? SwiftUI is clearly the right choice for iOS, but if they use it on Mac they would have to develop a separate implementation for older Macs, and anyway they hit problems where SwiftUI just flat out isn't mature enough on Mac anyway.
The only other alternative would have been to rewrite the native client again in ObjC, knowing that they would have to rewrite it again in the near future anyway. All of these options suck really badly. I think it's just unfortunate timing given the current state of development of SwiftUI. do you really see a better pragmatic way forward?
This way hopefully in future when older Macs cease being an issue, and SwiftUI on Mac matures, hopefully they will port the iOS code base to Mac. At least the fact they went with SwitfUI on iOS instead of a cross platform framework is a good sign.