Announcement: Sunsetting the Jira Cloud for Mac App

[Jacob Wallström]

This news makes me sad. I agree that the Mac app is so much more pleasant to work with than the web site. I also think you have done a terrible job marketing the Mac app. If you are using the web site using a Mac, why not show a prompt for the Mac app? That is if the company as a whole really wanted it to succeed.

I am at a company were a lot of users would probably had appreciated it, but I think nobody knew about it. I myself just learned about it a few days ago, only to discover that it is being abandoned. 

[Svetlin Arabadzhiev]

This is extremely sad. Can you at least make it open source, so community can take it from this point? 

[Philipp Bischoff]

@Svetlin Arabadzhiev would highly welcome such a decision but since they are probably using their private APIs (at least they do so in their iOS applications), this probably won't happen.

[philip_heinser]

However, since its launch in 2019, the performance of Jira’s web and native mobile apps has improved and gone beyond what is possible with the Jira Cloud for Mac app.

This sounds like a lie to me. Performance on the mobile app is not possible on the Mac app?? 

Really sad news.

[Spencer Grimes]

Like many of the comments here, I'm disappointed with this decision. The web app in my experience is unbearably slow at times and and far more cumbersome than the native mac app. The mac app has made using Jira bearable for me and I will continue to use it as long as possible. 

Fortunately Notion has a great native app as well as much faster & easier web experience and I can move at least my personal and team projects to that tool going forward. 

[Tomi Savolainen]

Can't understand the decision here. I bury my face in my palms.

[Yavor Yankov]

Definitely a step back. It had so much potential. 

[joajons]

OH NO! I love the Mac app. The web version is to massive and complicated! :-(

[guillaume_laurent]

This doesn't make sense. It's never been easier to get a mobile app to run on macOS, and the macOS Jira app is hugely helpful, way more than its web counterpart. Very disappointing news.

[Marcelo Paredes]

The web version is slow and ugly. Its doesn't even work well on Safari (or Chrome FWIW) on a M1 Max (no, it's no better in the MacBook Pro 16" i9 from 2019, either), so how is it that "Our sole focus is ensuring you have the best possible experience with Jira so for that reason we are sunsetting the Jira Cloud for Mac app and focusing all energy on building outstanding performance across the most powerful versions of Jira Cloud."

I wonder how have you got to the conclusion this is best for anyone.

[Paulo Gomes]

Probably a decision that was driven by numbers and not vision, very typical by some people. We had a glance of the future with the Mac App with a combination of performance, functionality, and look & feel (yes, users also love good design and look & feel) and now that is trowed away.

In my opinion, Apple and Steve Jobs were right in thinking that the native experience is better, it's true that web applications improved a lot in the last few years, but... the reality is that the native experience is still ahead in many areas.

On the Jira App, I use it every day for all the reasons already mentioned here, and fall back to the web version only in some situations where the app still needs improvements, but that is maybe only 10% of my workflow.

[Michal Poszumski]

Whyyyy?

Jira app was missing some elements, sure, but it is my daily tool and I can do work faster than on the web version, which is somehow slower. 

This is less than great. 

[DavidW]

This decision has really come out of the blue. As a relative newbie to the platform, it was a decision I made for the team t0 go with this. We are all Mac/iPad/iPhone users and we all use the Apple eco-system to maintain a single data point of reference for all development and Product Management processes. We purposely went for this as the web version sucks, even with high Internet bandwidth that we have available. Binning the Mac app simply does not make sense.

This will have a very negative consequence for those to whom I recommended it in the first place. It doesn't exactly do much for my reputation either. 

[Blake Irvin]

This is a bummer. The web experience for Jira is a mess. Jira.app is one of the only ways I've been able to deal with all of the feature bloat and performance problems that seem to plague Jira Web.

[Dennis Peters]

Can I request one feature on the web... the "Create +" buttons at the bottom of the lists on the active board.  Our workflow means that we have to add some tasks on-the-fly.  the "Create" button at the top of the web page requires too many steps, compared to the "Create +", type the issue, and done.

Also, I agree with the other comments on here.  The web interface is way more clunky than the app.  If you're going to save development resources here, then put them towards the user experience there.  There's no reason in todays world that a web app has to be that clunky.

[Eric Murphy]

Apple says that the only thing required to make an app "Mac compatible" if you're already developing an iOS or iPadOS app is a "single check in Xcode."  So, why aren't you checking that box in Xcode?  

Please tell me you at least aren't going to block being able to use the app on m1 Macs where you can access the iPad/iPhone store?  

[Felipe Aragão]

That's sad indeed. I recently started using the app and I was so surprised at HOW MUCH BETTER the app is compared to the web app. Please don't say that the web version is faster, because if it took 10s to open a ticket and now it takes 5s, that's not fast, its still slow.

The web app is so clunky most of the time that I really only use it to manage settings, users, permissions etc and thats only because I can't do that on the Mac app (not that I know, at least). The daily work of updating tickets, making comments, delegating work is made so much more stressful if I have to do it through the web app, really.

The web app is heavy and slow and it alone is enough to make my browser break a sweat. Seriously.

So, really, I don't think that was a good move at all, and unless you can deliver a blazing fast web in the near future, I can see myself moving away from Jira very easily.

Your web app makes even Notion seem like a better option to manage work, really >.>, and Notion is an all-rounder while yours should be focused on this.

[Eric Murphy]

Seriously it's ONE CHECK BOX.  It takes too much time to click it?  

Straight from Apple:  

To add support for Mac, open your Xcode project and select the iOS target that you want to configure. In the General tab, under Deployment Info, select the Mac checkbox. 

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/mac_catalyst/creating_a_mac_version_of_your_ipad_app

[Rob Sammons]

@Eric Murphy it is more than just a check box thats a general statement from Apple to get it working as just an iPad app but there is a lot more custom code in the Jira Mac app for sure.

I don't think the problem is the code side, it's someone higher up making this stupid decision.

[Eric Murphy]

@Rob Sammons Apple specifically said in a few other posts that it's a "Simple checkbox" with no code changes.  I've also used an m1 Mac and the apps simply open on it just like they do on the iPad, unless a developer specifically blocks the app.

[Rob Sammons]

@Eric Murphy their Mac app isn't just their iPad app, it's a catalyst app with custom Mac catalyst code. You can tell as the menu structure is entirely different to the iPad app.

You're confusing an iPad app on an M1 Mac with an iPad App using Mac Catalyst technologies which also allows it to run on intel. 

You can technically just press the check box but you're underselling what the Jira Mac app is by saying that's all they've done 🙂 

[Eric Murphy]

@Rob Sammons  Totally true, the Mac app isn't the same as the iPad app.  I'm just asking them why they aren't at least combining the iPad app into the Mac app instead of just saying "Nope not releasing a Mac app anymore".  

[Rob Sammons]

@Eric Murphy Fingers crossed they at least leave that option for M1 users. You can't currently offer that option if you have a Mac app attached to the iOS app which they do right now.

[Eric Murphy]

@Rob Sammons at least that would make sense.  An announcement about combining the apps into one app instead of two distinct apps would have us Mac users a lot less upset 

[Magnus Knutas]

Well this sucks! App is so much better than the web.