Ionic 2.0 vs. 3.0
It wasn’t all that long ago that the Ionic 2.0 framework was introduced. As developers worked with it, though, they kept running into small bugs that stretched out application development. Those complaints were heard, and the Ionic team has delivered a version that is both fixed and new.
Ionic 3.0 isn’t a completely new framework, but the change is noticeable. The current version is built on the new Angular 4.0.0. That has been reworked to some extent compared with the 3.x.x version Ionic 2.0 was built on. The change brings a number of new features, a smaller size, and greater speed and stability for applications.
Moving up a version
Another important change is the move to a newer version of TypeScript. Version 2.2 shortens application build times and, above all, improves type checking. Compatibility with previous versions is still maintained.
Innovation has to be constant. The days when developers had to set up an application’s entire configuration in the root file are gone. Ionic 3.0 brings configuration through the @IonicPage component on each page separately. That makes everything clearer and far more manageable. Thanks to this change it is easier still to make use of the lazy loading pattern and to configure individual pages.
Lazy loading
Lazy loading already works in the new version, although the Ionic developers still don’t have enough feedback and opinions from the developer community. This change has an enormous impact not just on paging itself, but on navigation throughout an application. The huge upside is that, thanks to it, applications should be up to twice as fast.
The Ionic developers’ next steps will focus on refining the speed, stability and performance of applications. If the framework team pulls it off, the speed of hybrid applications could come even closer to native ones — perhaps even match them. The plans also include improving desktop support further. And, not least, fixing the bugs and issues that come with the change to application navigation.