A little more than one month ago, we announced the release of the new Icenium Extension for Visual Studio. Following up such a successful release was a daunting task, but I think you'll be as amazed as I am at what we have for you today. Starting right now, Icenium is shipping with full support for iOS 7 - and the latest release of our Visual Studio extension contains numerous updates to help complete the hybrid mobile development story within Visual Studio. And last, but not least, we are happy to announce integration with Telerik's new application analytics solution: EQATEC.
Now if you love new releases as much as I do (and the features that come with them), you'll want me to skip the chatter and get right to them! So without further ado, here is what you can expect out of the latest release of Icenium:
One of the most requested features across the suite of Icenium tools has been to add full support for iOS 7. This was a logical addition that we are proud to formally announce! Starting today with the Icenium Extension for Visual Studio, the Windows-based Graphite client, and the browser-based Mist client, iOS 7 is fully supported. What does this actually mean to you as a developer though?
These updates will really help when you're ready to push a new version of your hybrid mobile app to iOS 7 users. This is doubly important as over 70% of iOS users are now on iOS 7 (compared to 25% on iOS 6 and 5% on older versions of Apple's mobile OS).
A lot of work has been done to help complete the hybrid mobile app development story within Visual Studio. While our first release of the Icenium Extension for Visual Studio was a resounding success, we were missing some core features that long-time Icenium users have come to expect. With this release we have filled many of those gaps:
There is a lot going on with this new release! You can expect future blog posts from us to highlight many of these new features. But for now, download the Icenium Extension for Visual Studio and try it out for yourself. If you already have the extension installed, you should be prompted to update it automatically from within Visual Studio.
Starting with this version of Icenium, you may now turn on and off both core and integrated plugins on an as-needed basis for each project. If you're confused as to what this means, don't worry. Starting with Cordova 3.0, the core Cordova framework was trimmed down and actually ships without ANY plugins.
That's right, even "core" features such as geolocation, camera access, and file storage have been separated out and need to be installed separately. In previous versions of Icenium we kept all of those core plugins installed by default. With this version, though, you can actually pick and choose which plugins you want to use in your hybrid mobile app - along with integrated plugins such as SQLite, Barcode Scanner, and Push Notifications.
Our Mist and Graphite users have been enjoying the Kendo UI Mobile Designer, and it keeps getting better. With this release we are adding support for non-visual and invisible widgets like Layouts, ActionSheets, and PopOvers. By adding these widgets to the design palette, integrating them with your Kendo UI Mobile app just got that much easier.
In case you missed the news, Telerik just released a brand new analytics solution called EQATEC! Mobile app developers who are looking to add analytics support to their apps should take a good look at EQATEC. Adding it to your Icenium project couldn't be easier as well, as it is available as an integrated plugin that can be enabled directly within any Icenium IDE.
But why should you use EQATEC when there are other analytics offerings available? Great question! EQATEC not only supports traditional analytics but also provides developers the ability to monitor the stability of their apps and receive emailed error notifications that can include a full stack trace. Imagine the support tickets you can avoid with such up-to-date notifications!
More information is available on the EQATEC web site.
What's next for Icenium is really up to you! Check out our feedback portal to let us know what features are most important to YOUR hybrid mobile app development experience. In the meantime, enjoy the latest release of Icenium!
A maker at heart and a supporter of the open web, Rob is Developer Relations Lead at Blues Wireless. You can find Rob rambling incoherently on Twitter @RobLauer.