Exciting news for users as Bitwarden Password Manager apps on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store will soon be upgraded to native applications for iOS and Android! To learn more about the native apps check out this blog: Bitwarden releases phased beta for native mobile apps Here’s what you need to know: For new users: You’ll receive the new native app when you first install Bitwarden from the app stores. For existing users: The update will be gradually rolled out to your mobile devices,...
Sweet, I love Bitwarden. What’s a native app?
Their current app uses a cross platform framework that allowed them to write their app once and then publish to both iOS and Android. That system is no longer well supported and was causing them issues implementing passkeys on mobile. They’ve been working on rewriting the app individually for each platform using the platform’s specific language. That’s generally Java on Android and Swift on iOS. It’s more work, but ideally the apps should be more responsive, better follow each platforms style guidelines, and have access to all features on the platform.
Kotlin on Android. There’s no reason to use Java afaik, as older Java libs can be used in a Kotlin codebase.
You’re right. Also the other way around the new Kotlin frameworks needed can’t easily be used in a Java codebase. I mean on bytecode level they’re compatible but it’s basically impossible in practice
“Native” means that the app is specifically developed for the operating system, unlike the current app, which is developed via a generic (and outdated) framework.