Dashlane rewrites its iOS app, improving efficiency, speed, and performance

Dashlane announced the completion of a bottom-to-top rewrite of its iOS app, improving efficiency, speed, and performance. The rewrite involved teams across three international offices led by the engineering group based in Paris, following a move from its original Objective-C codebase to account for the evolution of Apple technologies like Swift UI and Combine.

The goal of the rewrite encompassed keeping up with the ever-changing iOS landscape, while making sure there was minimal disturbance for current iOS app users, diligently maintaining usable code, and providing a better digital experience for millions of Dashlane users.

The results of the rewrite included 50% fewer crashes compared to the previous app, after removing archaic architecture and legacy codebase, and 50% faster performance with the ability to load user accounts and get their password data to them faster—key for a password manager.

Dashlane engineers now have the ability to evolve, maintain, and improve the iOS app experience easier than ever before.

Dashlane launched its iOS app in 2012. Throughout those eight years, the original Objective-C codebase remained. At the time, iOS was not as robust as it is today—limiting opportunities for a password manager app to provide useful features to users beyond copy and paste, or a pieced together web-view resembling autofill.

By re-writing core parts of the iOS app mired in outdated and convoluted code in Swift, the engineering team was able to break down the monolithic app into neat, valuable frameworks, allowing for better test coverage.

Over the years, code was re-written for internal cryptography, data sync mechanisms, and local storage tools, providing a running start for the rewrite, followed by six months of hard work from the team to ship an update in the App Store.

“While we didn’t fail with our first app, our team wasn’t satisfied with what we had achieved. We needed a drastic solution. We needed a rewrite,” said Rew Islam, Senior Engineering Manager at Dashlane.

“Our team has worked tirelessly to improve the app experience for our millions of users who want to keep their passwords safe, and we look forward to fitting out the new app with the latest iOS features.”