I’ve been building Ionic/Cordova apps since Ionic v1.
Just recently, we have finished rewriting our platform to catch up with newer technologies.
I need to build a new mobile app and I was super excited about Capacitor 3 and Ionic 6.x.
I started a new project and quickly scaffolded the UI, wired up our API communication, etc.
Everything went well until I needed to integrate some native APIs.
Unfortunately, Capacitor lacks essential plugins for typical use-cases, for example:
- Audio recording
- Video capture
- Fingerprint scanner
- File picker
- Speech to text
Just to name a few. There are a number of 3rd party plugins on Github but they’re using Capacitor 2 and downgrading isn’t an option. I tried to use existing Cordova plugins, but they’re outdated too.
One of the main problems I’m facing is that most of these plugins (media-capture, media, etc.) don’t support Android 11. The file system has changed (scoped storage) and there are new privacy settings to adhere to. I’m using an Android 11 device, and for iOS, I use an iPhone 8 updated to the latest version.
I’ve been experimenting with Flutter and Xamarin Forms too. Even though they’re both great technologies, it seems a waste of time. I’d have to spend a ton of time to learn new frameworks and adapt to their ecosystems, and they don’t have great support for native APIs either.
Flutter packages for instance, are buggy and don’t work well with Android 11 either.
I really like to stick with Ionic and Capacitor, but we need to know if we’re making the right decision here.
Are there alternative plugins that work with Android 10+? Preferably, Capacitor 3 plugins.
Is the Capacitor team actively working on new plugins to support typical workloads?
Does anyone know about the Cordova plugins’ roadmap? There’s no telling if updates are coming soon or not.
I hope someone can help with this and give me reassuring news.