Sometimes we have to make decisions based on technical tradeoffs. In this case, dropping the webserver, which is a goal we’ve had for a while, means moving to APIs on iOS that are only available on 11+.
Also please note that we are supporting iOS 10. All you need to do is stay on 2.x. Don’t get so hung up on a version number! We will continue to work on new things with different platform support and release them as major version number releases (like 2.x to 3.x) while keeping the older version around.
Since iOS 10 now represents < 8% of usage, we think this is the right time to give users the option to move to a new version that no longer supports the webserver.
Please note that our support is sliding, meaning that we will eventually drop support for iOS 10 for Ionic. We have no reason to do that right now but the point is we keep the support window to the last three versions generally at the most and will keep adjusting as new versions are released.
In the meantime, we will work to backport any non-webserver fixes from 3 to 2.x to make sure all users can benefit.