May 13, 2019
  • Announcements
  • Capacitor

Capacitor Beta: The Road to 1.0

Matt Netkow

Capacitor logo

The Capacitor team has been heads down the last few months preparing for a version 1.0 release, currently slated for early June. Here’s the latest news on the Capacitor beta.

Haven’t heard of Capacitor? It’s our new open source cross-platform app runtime that makes it easier to build web apps that run natively on iOS, Android, Electron, and the web. It provides web-focused APIs that enable an app to stay as close to web-standards as possible while accessing rich native device features on platforms that support them. The best part? It’s backward-compatible with Cordova, so you can comfortably switch your existing Ionic apps to it whenever you’re ready.

Bug Fixes and Enhancements

A majority of the team’s focus has been on Capacitor internals and ensuring the APIs are rock solid. This includes tweaks to the native project templates and as well as keeping dependencies up to date. Additionally, ensuring that Capacitor integrates smoothly with Ionic Angular, Ionic React, and the PWA Elements library.

We also added some community contributions. Special thanks to the following people:

maedewiza, javebratt, msepena, jabiinfante, stewwan, sbannigan

Looking to get involved with Capacitor? Check out the Contributing Guide.

Docs Refresh

In addition to working on Capacitor’s code, we’re taking a fresh look at the documentation. We’re continuing to update them – in the meantime, check out the updated Getting Started section, which includes revamped instructions on how to use Capacitor with Ionic.

Ionic + Capacitor Guide Now Available

The Ionic DevRel and Customer Success teams have kept busy creating two new Capacitor guides. Using Capacitor in an Ionic Framework App takes you from zero to app while incorporating the Camera plugin and Using Push Notifications with Firebase in an Ionic Angular 4 App covers two of our most requested topics: Firebase and push notifications.

Webinar

But that’s not all! Please join me for a very special webinar on Wednesday, May 22nd dedicated to the latest news about Capacitor, an overview of the changes from the beta to the 1.0 release, and a live demo of all of the Capacitor native APIs. Maybe even details on when we’re planning to launch Capacitor 1.0 (early June 😅)?

Start Using Capacitor Now

Things are shaping up nicely for Capacitor as we head towards 1.0. Lots of enhancements (thanks in big part to our community contributions!), rolling updates to the documentation including in-depth guides, and a webinar next week.

Capacitor is ready now for your web and Ionic projects. A simple npm install and you’re off to the races!


Matt Netkow