Published on: March 5, 2024
Popular cybersecurity company Bitwarden is releasing a major UI overhaul for its password manager app.
While Bitwarden provides one of the best password managers on the market, it’s always had a reputation for having a clunky interface. The new UI is intended to make it easier to navigate the app and use its various features on iOS and Android devices while also bringing its accessibility in line with modern password managers.
The company is shifting away from relying on the Microsoft Xamarin framework so it can update its apps faster. Microsoft Xamarin was a promising app designing tool during Bitwarden’s development but it released an app that was unusable and buggy for many users. More than five years later, support for Xamarin is waning.
Bitwarden is one of many developers who have transitioned away from Xamarin after Microsoft completely redesigned it. A post on Reddit by the developers stated that Xamarin “has been a subpar experience for us.”
The developers also remarked that Xamarin caused their app to require markedly more system resources than most of Bitwardens top competitors. Even a small disadvantage in such a competitive market can have rippling effects that last for years.
The new apps rely on Material You, Google, and Apple’s app guidelines, resulting in a streamlined interface and much easier-to-use features. The developers believe the new app will feel more native to their respective app stores.
“Early last year we began planning to retire our Xamarin-based mobile apps and made the decision to transition our mobile apps to fully native apps written in Swift (for iOS) and Kotlin (for Android),” Bitwarden Developer posted on Reddit. “Over the past 6 months, we have been actively developing these new native apps and at this time they are nearing completion.”
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