May 2017 Summaries

Max Lynch, CEO of Ionic, reflects on the evolution of the web on mobile, highlighting significant advancements in web technologies and APIs that have enabled web apps to achieve native-like performance. He recalls the early skepticism surrounding hybrid apps during the Facebook HTML5 debacle in 2012, which many thought marked the end for platforms like PhoneGap and Cordova. However, Lynch and his team believed in the potential of web technologies, which led them to develop Ionic, a framework that leveraged improvements such as GPU-accelerated CSS transformations and requestAnimationFrame to enhance mobile web performance. With the release of newer iOS and Android versions, the necessary tools to achieve their vision became available, allowing Ionic to power various social and enterprise apps. Lynch expresses enthusiasm about the continuous evolution of web APIs and the potential for building faster, more efficient apps, emphasizing the importance of investing in web technologies for a promising future in app development.

The "Mobile Delivery Gap" is a growing challenge for enterprises as demand for mobile app development outpaces the capacity of internal development teams, driven by the need for context-driven mobile experiences that enhance productivity and user satisfaction. This gap is exacerbated by the complexities and inefficiencies of traditional app development, which requires multiple code bases for different platforms, and the adoption of suboptimal tools that fail to meet developers' needs despite fulfilling CIO criteria. Additionally, the inability of centralized teams to keep up with demand leads to fragmented, siloed development efforts across organizations. Ionic positions itself as a solution to these issues by offering tools that streamline app creation and cater to developers' preferences, aiming to make the development process faster and more efficient.

The first Ionic Jedi Hackster competition, held on May the Fourth, exceeded expectations by receiving ten high-quality app submissions from the Ionic developer community, despite initially anticipating only a few entries. These apps, developed using the Ionic 3 CLI, were quickly created and submitted, showcasing the developers' skills and dedication. The internal judging at Ionic HQ was supplemented by community feedback via Ionic Worldwide Slack to determine the winner. Although all participants received gifts for their contributions, the grand prize of a light saber was awarded to Yann B. from Brazil for his "Star Warnic" app. The event highlighted the enthusiasm and creativity within the Ionic community.

The blog post by Mike Hartington explores two approaches to organizing Angular and Ionic applications for optimal lazy loading by focusing on UI components, directives, and pipes. It presents two strategies: encapsulated modules, where each component and pipe is wrapped into its own module to ensure minimal code is loaded, and shared common modules, where all components and pipes are bundled into a single module for simplicity. The encapsulated modules approach emphasizes separation and encapsulation, although it requires more boilerplate code, whereas the shared common modules approach simplifies management at the cost of potentially larger code chunks. The post advises developers to evaluate these options based on their app's size and complexity, aiming to send the least amount of code per chunk for efficiency, and suggests that the remaining focus should be on optimizing libraries for mobile-friendliness.

Ionic CLI v3 has been released, offering significant improvements in speed and guidance due to the reduction of dependencies and legacy code. The new version introduces a modular architecture through CLI plugins, allowing users to maintain a small core while adding specific functionalities as needed. This approach enhances the development process for various platforms like desktop and PWAs. The CLI provides interactive prompts and improved command help, and namespaces Cordova commands to accommodate the expanding scope of Ionic applications. Users are encouraged to upgrade by uninstalling the old CLI and installing the new version, ensuring they also install the appropriate plugins for their projects. Despite some known issues, including slow dependency downloads and configuration file changes, the release is supported by comprehensive documentation and community engagement through feedback and contributions.

Ionic has partnered with the AWS Mobile Team to create the official Ionic AWS starter project, aimed at simplifying the process for developers to build fully functional apps with production-ready backends. This starter project provides an Ionic app pre-configured with AWS Mobile Hub services such as Amazon Cognito for user identity management, DynamoDB for data storage, S3 for file storage, and Pinpoint for analytics. The initiative addresses the challenge developers face in navigating mobile-enabled backend services and is designed to accelerate the development process by offering pre-configured pages and utilities. To utilize this starter, developers are advised to follow the README instructions on the ionic2-starter-aws project and ensure they are using the 3.x RC version of the Ionic CLI. The Ionic team is seeking feedback to improve the project and welcomes suggestions for additional features.

To celebrate Star Wars Day, Ionic hosted a hackathon called "Become an Ionic Jedi Hackster," offering developers the chance to win an Archon v2.1 Lightsaber from UltraSabers.com. Participants had 48 hours, starting from May 5, 2017, to create innovative and fun applications using the Ionic framework and the Star Wars API. Key requirements included adhering to the Ionic Code of Conduct, using the Ionic v3 CLI, submitting work via a public GitHub repository, and sharing the app through Ionic View Sharing. Judging, based on creativity, uniqueness, fun factor, and code quality, concluded with the announcement of winners on May 12, 2017.