Ionic Platform for Mobile App Development: Features & New Releases

Published on May 9, 2016

Updated on Apr 17, 2020

Since its release in 2013, the Ionic platform has gained huge respect in the hybrid and mobile development community.

As of January 2019, Ionic has a git repo of 39.9k stars with an active support community. Its open-source mobile app development framework helps to build top-quality native and progressive applications.

Before we dig into details, let’s first look at the three main features of the Ionic framework.

OSS Framework: Ionic provides open-source, free mobile UI toolkit for building cross-platform apps (iOS, Android, and web) from a single codebase.
Mobile DevOps: It addresses the complete lifecycle of mobile DevOps with automated native builds, live-updates, and CI/CD.
AngularJS: It uses the AngularJS frontend Javascript framework for building scalable applications.
Integrations: Ionic allows integrating community plugins along with premium supported integrations.
Compiler: It uses Capacitor, Cordova, and PhoneGap compiler for native mobile applications with CSS, HTML, and Javascript.
App Builder: Through Ionic Studio, it provides a visual development environment to build functional apps in minutes.

Packed with lots of useful & out-of-box CSS components, the Ionic platform provides extensive documentation, examples, and starter videos. It helps to simplify the learning curve and get developers up and running quickly.

Advantages of Ionic Platform

Ionic is an open-source SDK for hybrid mobile app development. It wraps the AngularJS framework with HTML5 and CSS and uses Cordova to access native device functions. The biggest advantage of using Ionic is — it allows building hybrid apps with amazing UI, which behave like native apps and rely on a single shared codebase.

If you’re scared of Javascript, then trust me, with Ionic it’s not as bad as you might think. Look at these advantages of the Ionic platform.

Cross platform: The code you write once runs effectively on web, iOS, and android.
Open source: It’s free to use with a number of community generated plugins integration.
Development environment: Majority of components are developed in HTML, CSS, and JS, which almost all web developers are familiar with.
Frontend development: AngularJS is embedded in Ionic by default allowing to build scalable applications.
Deeplinking: To load a specific page on the app through a web link.
Live Reload: It helps developers to compile and redeploy apps at every stage of development.

The Ionic platform provides a set of Angular directives (custom HTML elements) for its components. This makes using widgets as easy as writing a line of HTML code. Plus, the developers get access to Angular’s touch recognizers, view animation logic, HTML sanitation, and asynchronous communication.

While the developers can use Ionic straight after cloning or unpacking the library zip, they can also install their Node.js-based CLI through NPM and start quickly with their seed project.

Also read – Trending JavaScript Frameworks in 2020

What’s New in Ionic

Ionic React

On October 14, 2019, Ionic released Ionic React — a native react version of the Ionic framework. Using the standard react-dom library, Ionic has successfully expanded its ecosystem around the web platform.

With developers’ growing intent towards progressive web apps, Ionic’s integration with React provides one of the best PWA solutions to generate highly efficient web components.

Read the details about the Ionic React announcement here.

Capacitor

Addressing many developers’ concerns about Cordova’s performance, Ionic released Capacitor 1.0 on May 22, 2019. Ionic still supports Cordova. However, new apps will run on this new cross-platform engine — Capacitor, which majorly aims at supporting progressive web apps.

The capacitor is available as a Javascript API and developers can import it directly to their apps. Also, exposing new native SDKs to Capacitor is extremely easy! Developers will need just a little wrapper code with first-class support for Swift on iOS and Java on Android.

Ionic Studio

Ionic Studio is an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for an amazing developer experience for building Ionic apps. It offers a robust code editor with TypeScript support, auto compilation, and debugging.

It brings forth a visual development environment with AWS Amplify for backend integrations. Ionic Studio also eliminates the need for developer docs.

Ionic Framework Use Case

Recently, Mantra Labs has built a mobile application using Ionic for its client — Ezetap. The app generates an invoice for merchants and takes payment against it. It helps the merchants manage their purchase records, accounts, and customer data. The app is currently used by leading businesses like Dominos, Indian Oil, Deccan Herald, Indane, and many more.

Read case study

Ionic Platform Installation Guide

For installation help and smart suggestions from developers, you may refer to the Ionic Documentation.

Please note, the platform is the actual hardware/software on which an application or software is built. Whereas, a framework is a collection of libraries and classes that provide a structure for app development. Ionic is thus, both a platform and a framework for building web and mobile applications.

If you’re planning for mobile app development or have queries related to the Ionic framework, feel free to reach out to us at hello@mantralabsglobal.com. Our developers are here to clear doubts and offer suggestions based on your business and technical needs.

[Related: Learn Ionic Framework From Scratch in Less Than 15 Minutes!]

Smart Manufacturing starts with real-time visibility.

Manufacturing companies today generate data by the second through sensors, machines, ERP systems, and MES platforms. But without real-time insights, even the most advanced production lines are essentially flying blind.

Manufacturers are implementing real-time dashboards that serve as control towers for their daily operations, enabling them to shift from reactive to proactive decision-making. These tools are essential to the evolution of Smart Manufacturing, where connected systems, automation, and intelligent analytics come together to drive measurable impact.

Data is available, but what’s missing is timely action.

For many plant leaders and COOs, one challenge persists: operational data is dispersed throughout systems, delayed, or hidden in spreadsheets. And this delay turns into a liability.

Real-time dashboards help uncover critical answers:

What caused downtime during last night’s shift?
Was there a delay in maintenance response?
Did a specific inventory threshold trigger a quality issue?

By converting raw inputs into real-time manufacturing analytics, dashboards make operational intelligence accessible to operators, supervisors, and leadership alike, enabling teams to anticipate problems rather than react to them.

1. Why Static Reports Fall Short

Reports often arrive late—after downtime, delays, or defects have occurred.
Disconnected data across ERP, MES, and sensors limits cross-functional insights.
Static formats lack embedded logic for proactive decision support.

2. What Real-Time Dashboards Enable

Line performance and downtime trends
Track OEE in real time and identify underperforming lines.

Predictive maintenance alerts
Utilize historical and sensor data to identify potential part failures in advance.

Inventory heat maps & reorder thresholds
Anticipate stockouts or overstocks based on dynamic reorder points.

Quality metrics linked to operator actions
Isolate shifts or procedures correlated with spikes in defects or rework.

These insights allow production teams to drive day-to-day operations in line with Smart Manufacturing principles.

3. Dashboards That Drive Action

Role-based dashboards
Dashboards can be configured for machine operators, shift supervisors, and plant managers, each with a tailored view of KPIs.

Embedded alerts and nudges
Real-time prompts, like “Line 4 below efficiency threshold for 15+ minutes,” reduce response times and minimize disruptions.

Cross-functional drill-downs
Teams can identify root causes more quickly because users can move from plant-wide overviews to detailed machine-level data in seconds.

4. What Powers These Dashboards

Data lakehouse integration
Unified access to ERP, MES, IoT sensor, and QA systems—ensuring reliable and timely manufacturing analytics.

ETL pipelines
Real-time data ingestion from high-frequency sources with minimal latency.

Visualization tools
Custom builds using Power BI, or customized solutions designed for frontline usability and operational impact.

Smart Manufacturing in Action: Reducing Market Response Time from 48 Hours to 30 Minutes

Mantra Labs partnered with a North American die-casting manufacturer to unify its operational data into a real-time dashboard. Fragmented data, manual reporting, delayed pricing decisions, and inconsistent data quality hindered operational efficiency and strategic decision-making.

Tech Enablement:

Centralized Data Hub with real-time access to critical business insights.
Automated report generation with data ingestion and processing.
Accurate price modeling with real-time visibility into metal price trends, cost impacts, and customer-specific pricing scenarios.
Proactive market analysis with intuitive Power BI dashboards and reports.

Business Outcomes:

Faster response to machine alerts
Quality incidents traced to specific operator workflows
4X faster access to insights led to improved inventory optimization.

As this case shows, real-time dashboards are not just operational tools—they’re strategic enablers.

(Learn More: Powering the Future of Metal Manufacturing with Data Engineering)

Key Takeaways: Smart Manufacturing Dashboards at a Glance

Aspect	What You Should Know
1. Why Static Reports Fall Short	Delayed insights after issues occur Disconnected systems (ERP, MES, sensors) No real-time alerts or embedded decision logic
2. What Real-Time Dashboards Enable	Track OEE and downtime in real-time Predictive maintenance using sensor data Dynamic inventory heat maps Quality linked to operators
3. Dashboards That Drive Action	Role-based views (operator to CEO) Embedded alerts like “Line 4 down for 15+ mins” Drilldowns from plant-level to machine-level
4. What Powers These Dashboards	Unified Data Lakehouse (ERP + IoT + MES) Real-time ETL pipelines Power BI or custom dashboards built for frontline usability

Conclusion

Smart Manufacturing dashboards aren’t just analytics tools—they’re productivity engines. Dashboards that deliver real-time insight empower frontline teams to make faster, better decisions—whether it’s adjusting production schedules, triggering preventive maintenance, or responding to inventory fluctuations.

Explore how Mantra Labs can help you unlock operations intelligence that’s actually usable.

Ionic Platform for Mobile App Development: Features & New Releases

Advantages of Ionic Platform