Should i add crosswalk or not?

Ionic Framework ionic-v3
#1

Okay, so with Ionic 1, I’ve been using Crosswalk for better performance on older devices.
I still don’t like that with crosswalk apk size is around 26MB, and think that is too much.

I believe from android 4.4 chromium is used in the webview, if so should I just allow the app to install on OS greater than android 4.4 ?
http://www.mobilexweb.com/blog/android-4-4-kitkat-browser-chrome-webview

If I’m supporting android >= 4.4, then would any one still recommend to use Crosswalk?

#2

i would not use crosswalk.

In most cases older devices does not have the power to run a hybrid app smoothly. So it does not matter if you have crosswalk or not. I would use it if you need to support older devices, but i would try to avoid it.

Greets

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#3

Is it true that you cannot use pipes in ionic 2 on devices kitkat or older without crosswalk?
This represents 47% of all android devices! In which case I would suggest that crosswalk is essential to run an ionic 2 application.

#4

You should check your target group of users (gender, age, country, …). :wink:

If you need to optimise your app for african, indian, chinese or south american market, then you will need crosswalk.

#5

In my point of view:

Pro:

  • Performance
  • Except same behavior on many devices

Cons:

  • App size gonna grow at least from 20 Mb
  • Android 4.0 discarded (see below)

So yep I’m agree with what was already said, depends of your target group

Note: With the last version of xwalk, you could see following information in the console

 Crosswalk info:
    After much discussion and analysis of the market,

    we have decided to discontinue support for Android 4.0 (ICS) in Crosswalk starting with version 20,
    so the minSdkVersion of Cordova project is configured to 16 by default.
#6

I would like to note that only Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) is discontinued and not Android 4 (which implies 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 and 4.4 too). Android 4.0 (ICS) accounts for ~1.4% according to the statistics from the Android Developers Dashboards. IMHO this actually could be considered a Pro, since the Crosswalk developers could focus on the newer and more popular Android versions instead of fighting the quirks and edge-cases of Android 4.0.

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