I have followed all of the posts that I can find about inappbrowser. When I view my app in Ionic View it works perfectly. When I upload to phonegap build and put it on my iphone (or android) the external URL opens in the app not in an external browser.
I added the plugin, added ios and android platforms
I have tried various solutions, all with same result. At the moment I am using this:
< a href="#" onclick=“window.open(‘http://www.cnn.com’,’_blank’,‘location=yes’);” class=“button button-assertive” >Site < /a >
Can someone please help!!! 
thanks!
not sure if that helps, but have you tried target="_system" in your link?
https://wiki.apache.org/cordova/InAppBrowser
yes, I have tried both _blank and _system.
Here is one question, so i have done ‘ionic build ios’ and then ionic ‘upload’ to view it on ionic view where it works.
To get the app on my phone I am syncing phonegap build with my github repo. Is it possible that inappbrowser is not working with the way it is being built on phonegap build?
I have gotten a bit further along… I discovered that my config.xml was a hybrid of phonegab build and local builds. Fixed all of that and I can get inappbrowser working from the point of opening a hard coded link in a new window. yay!
What I really need to do now, is pass a link from a json file. I can pass it in without the javascript code and it loads the correct page, but in the app, when I attempt to use the javascript and pass in the url, it does not work.
So this opens window in app: (not what i want)
< a ng-href="{{artist.mp3}}" target="_system" class=“button button-assertive icon ion-play”>< /a>
This opens a link in a new window: (almost what i want)
< a href="#" onclick=“window.open(‘http://www.cnn.com’, ‘_system’, ‘location=yes’);”>
This does not work, but is what i want:
< a ng-click="$window.open({{artist.url}}, ‘_system’)" class=“button button-assertive”>Site< /a>
guessing I have the syntax wrong.