October 2026 Summaries

Capacitor 9 Beta introduces optional Cordova compatibility, source-first Swift packages for iOS, and initial support for foldable devices and multi-window environments, with general availability planned for late November 2026. To meet Google Play’s February 2027 requirement for app optimization, new projects and migrated apps now enable R8 shrinking and obfuscation for release builds, requiring developers to test plugins and plugin authors to supply keep rules for libraries such as Room, Gson, or Retrofit when necessary. Capacitor 9 also raises minimum support to Node 24 and npm 12, whose default disabling of lifecycle install scripts may affect plugins that rely on them; updated diagnostic and migration tools identify affected packages. On iOS, projects now launch through SwiftUI rather than the legacy AppDelegate, while migration tooling updates existing projects and requires review of customized app delegate logic. Capacitor 8.5 and 8.6 backport UIScene support, R8-related rules, and npm 12 compatibility checks for teams unable to upgrade immediately.