We just pushed some major improvements to Reactor apps, here’s what you need to know.

New Features and Updates

• Lots of caching and performance improvements: list views now hold your place when you go back
• Single post caching: any article you view in the app is cached so it loads faster, and it works offline
• Update to the latest version of Phonegap and plugins: we are now using Phonegap cli-5.2, along with npm versions of most plugins.
• Crosswalk: you can now use the crosswalk plugin, which enhances Android performance. Read more below.
• Minor bug fixes

Please note: you will have to rebuild and resubmit any live apps to gain access to these features.

Enhance Android Performance with Crosswalk

Crosswalk is an enhanced webview to make your app faster on Android. Without going into the technical details, it’s awesome and you should use it. To enable on your app, go to your app’s Build/Test tab, then scroll down to Phonegap Config. Copy/paste this there:

[html]<gap:plugin name="org.crosswalk.engine" version="1.3.0" />[/html]

Rebuild your app, and try it out on your Android device to see the performance boost (will not work in our preview app, you must build for your device).

Potential Issues

You may need to clear your device cache to see any changes. On Android, go to Settings->Apps->Your App->Clear Data. On iOS, you can delete the old app completely before re-installing.

If you are seeing issues with the browser preview of your app, please make sure you are using Safari or Chrome. Clear your browser cache and refresh a couple of times.

Custom Phonegap Plugins

If you have added any custom Phonegap plugins under your apps Build/Test tab -> Phonegap Config, you may have to update them.

Many plugins require their source to be changed to npm. The new plugins look like this:

[html]<gap:plugin name="cordova-plugin-contacts" source="npm" version="1.1.0" />[/html]

Notice the plugin name, and source have changed. Not all plugins have moved to npm, so please contact the plugin author for help, or look the plugin up on npm.

Enjoy the new features and better performance in your apps!

iOS9 comes out September 16th, and unfortunately there’s a pretty major bug that affects all apps built with AngularJS, including Reactor apps.

The bug has to do with the Webview used in hybrid apps, along with the window.location property in Javascript. In plain english, it breaks stuff when you try to change pages in your app. It has to do with the router in AngularJS, and it only affects apps in iOS9, not desktop or Android apps.

This is a bug on Apple’s side, and it will affect thousands of apps, not just Reactor apps. A fix may or may not be available when iOS9 comes out, so as a precaution we’ve pushed a fix for this issue to our code in Reactor.

Unfortunately you have to rebuild and resubmit your apps to Apple to apply this fix, there is no other way to do it.

What should I do?

You have 2 options:

1. Rebuild your app in Reactor, and submit an update to the app store.
2. Do nothing and hope Apple releases a fix soon.

I would be very surprised if Apple didn’t release a fix, because thousands of apps will be broken on iOS9 until they do. However, there are no guarantees.

My hope is that Apple will release a fix next week and no one will have to do anything, and all this commotion will be about nothing. However, we can’t just sit on our haunches, so the best we can do is apply a fix for anyone who wants it.

We will stay on top of this issue and let you know if anything changes.

To learn more about this issue and get a patch for your self-hosted Ionic projects, read this post.

Cheers!