In January 2015, Ionic introduced the ability to package modern rendering engines within apps for Cordova through Crosswalk, offering Android developers a bundled Chrome webview which improves performance and predictability. This feature aims to enhance hybrid mobile development, especially for older Android devices (versions 4.0-4.3), by providing a more consistent and performant browsing experience. Crosswalk allows developers to specify a version of Chrome, thereby ensuring uniformity across different devices and easing debugging processes. While integrating Crosswalk can increase app size by 10-15MB, it significantly enhances HTML/CSS rendering and JavaScript performance. The Ionic CLI update includes various milestones and improvements, such as error reporting and the ability to specify Crosswalk versions, and highlights the ongoing transition from Ant to Gradle for Android builds. Users are advised to use version control as the steps can alter Android projects, and to report any issues encountered during integration. The update also addresses challenges such as compatibility with Cordova Android versions and resource loading, providing solutions like installing specific plugins to maintain functionality.