Announcing Capacitor 5.0
Can you believe it!? Capacitor is turning 4 years old! Seems like just yesterday, it was but a fledgling framework, now grown into a big cross-platform development solution. We’re so proud.
As Capacitor continues to mature, we’re excited to announce the arrival of the latest version of our powerful, open-source native runtime – Capacitor 5.0.
Over the past four years, Capacitor has become the go-to choice for countless development teams worldwide. It’s trusted for its simplicity and effectiveness, enabling developers to easily ship web apps as native mobile apps.
Capacitor 5 is packed with helpful features and enhancements that will make your mobile app development journey even smoother and more enjoyable. 🥹 Capacitor is all grown up.
When should you upgrade?
Now.
Ok, maybe not right this second, but definitely soon!
Android Permissions
In August 2023, Android 13 will become the minimum target for new apps headed to the Google Play Store. With Android 13 comes new runtime permissions for sending non-exempt notifications.
Don’t worry, Capacitor 5 notifications plugins have got you covered! With support for this new runtime permission, developers can take advantage of the enhanced user experience and improve their app’s notification system.
It’s important to note that all new applications will be required to ask for this permission before being able to send notifications. But don’t let that discourage you! This new runtime permission actually improves the overall user experience by allowing developers to request notification permissions in context and giving users a chance to familiarize themselves with the app first.
So, if you want to avoid any Android permissions hiccups and make the most out of these new features, let Capacitor 5 do the hard work for you!
iOS Builds
Android wasn’t the only operating system making changes this year. Starting in April 2023, all iOS and iPadOS apps submitted to the App Store must be built with Xcode 14.1 and the iOS 16.1 SDK. Capacitor 5 is also fully compatible with these updates and will require a minimum of Xcode 14.1.
This means that you can continue to use Capacitor 5 to build your apps with the latest technology and stay up-to-date with the App Store guidelines. So check your release calendars and be ready for your next push by upgrading to Capacitor 5 today!
Google Maps Updates
Last year, we brought one of the most highly demanded plugins to the Capacitor ecosystem – Google Maps.
But you all wanted more. So we armed our developers with a lot of caffeine, listened to your requests, and now we’re excited to announce that we’ve added support for the Polylines, Polygons, and Circles drawing APIs too.
We believe that with these new APIs, developers will be able to create an even more amazing and feature-packed experience for their applications. We can’t wait to see how creative you’ll be, so if you’re ready to make use of these new additions, now’s the time.
Ready to get started?
Upgrading is simple, and we have a few options to get your projects and plugins up to date.
VS Code Extension
For most projects, the upgrade to Capacitor 5 is as simple as clicking a button using our VS Code extension. Check it out here.
The Ionic VS Code extension provides valuable tooling to enhance your development experience with Capacitor, enabling you to perform common development tasks without knowing any Capacitor CLI commands.
Updating Plugins
We’re extremely grateful for the amazing community of developers who have contributed plugins to the Capacitor ecosystem. We know that building and maintaining a plugin can be challenging, especially when it comes to keeping up with versioning. So, we’re happy to share that we’ve created a tool to help make this process easier.
Our tool can automatically upgrade your plugin and make all the necessary changes to ensure that it works flawlessly with Capacitor 5. Within your plugin root directory, simply execute the following command:
npx @capacitor/plugin-migration-v4-to-v5@latestBuild with Appflow
Ready to build and ship your newly updated Capacitor 5 app? Look no further than Appflow!
Our mobile DevOps platform Appflow provides users with the latest and greatest technology to ensure that their apps are always up to date. By utilizing the recently updated build stacks – Linux 2023.04 for web and Android builds and macOS 2023.03 for iOS builds – you can rest assured that your apps will meet the new app store requirements.
If you’re not already using Appflow for automated builds and deployments, now is the perfect time to get started! With a free trial, you can experience firsthand the benefits of using Appflow for your mobile CI/CD needs.
Now let’s party!
Throughout the month of May we’ll be celebrating Capacitor with you all! 🎉
Keep an eye out on our social channels for interesting tidbits on the history of Capacitor. Hang out with our engineers on Discord every Friday as they jump in to answer questions and offer a hand. Or tune in to a live stream on our YouTube channel as we build together using Capacitor.
Again, thank you to our amazing community members for your continued support and dedication to Capacitor. We can’t wait to see what we can build together next.
