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We will develop an app that we would like to distribute in through the following channels:

  1. Android and iOS apps through Google Play and iTunes (the app will use notifications extensively and presence in Google Play and App store is required)
  2. Web app to run in web browsers on mobile devices
  3. Web app to run in web browsers on laptop and desktop computers. We would like to support Chrome, Internet Explorer (starting from IE9), Firefox and Safari browsers.

Our understanding is that Ionic is developed targeting primarily 1. and that the web apps in 2. and 3. above are not really what Ionic is intended for. We have looked around to try to understand if Ionic likely works for 2. and 3. and also made some quick tests ourselves.

From one of the links at the end: "Your webapp will run in desktop browsers yes, as it is made of html, css and javascript. The phonegap specific javascript calls (accelerometer, compass, file, etc) won't. Basically, if you stick to standard yes you will be able to port relatively easily your app to most browser, the job at this point being mostly a work of theming."

From another one: "I do know that FireFox is simply not supported. I don't know how well Ionic works in IE X."

To try it out we have built a limited version of our app in Ionic. From what we can see the app works for 1, 2 and 3. For example, it runs without issues on FireFox that is mentioned as not supported in the quote above. This means that to us it looks like the first quote saying that the web app will work in desktop browsers is correct.

I understand that this is a fairly generic question and might be hard to answer, but since we have found contradicting information when looking we are trying to understand more before making a decision.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

Thanks, Markus

Is it a good idea to use ionic to build mobile web version of a website?

Can Ionic Framework run in desktop web browser like Chrome, Mozilla, IE9+?

http://forum.ionicframework.com/t/ionic-components-on-ie/1826

Phonegap web app in regular desktop browsers

http://ionicframework.com/docs/overview/#css-sass

Community
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user2993944
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2 Answers2

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Ionic is tested for mobile only. Internet Explorer for example is not tested and does not properly handle a number of features in Ionic. Desktop browsers act differently than mobile browsers.

Ionic is focused on building native/hybrid mobile apps rather than mobile websites.

As such, our browser support tends to be whatever Web View API is available to native apps on a given platform. For Ionic 1.1.0 "xenon-xerus", that means UIWebView for iOS 7+, and Android 4.1 and up. Windows Phone and FirefoxOS support is on our roadmap.

If it's cheaper for you to test everything on all different desktop browsers than to develop a version for it sharing the same controllers and services --- go ahead but it won't come "out of the box".

Also, I recommend looking at Electron to build desktop apps from webapps.

DanielM
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  • Thanks! Is there reasonable way to under what features of Ionic are not handled by IE or is it just by doing the full test suite? – user2993944 Aug 24 '15 at 07:18
  • Full test suite.. I recommend you use material for your desktop app and ionic for the mobile app sharing the same controllers. That's what I am doing and it works fine – DanielM Aug 25 '15 at 05:08
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ionic is targting mobile apps only , but you can develop your desktop app using node webkit and angular material for example and share some code between your apps