Announcing AppPresser 4: We Rebuilt Everything

AppPresser 4 is almost here, and it has a lot of exciting updates.

Updates and Improvements

We rewrote almost everything to create a stable infrastructure on the backend, and provide better features for your apps. I can't understate how much went into this, it's a major update.

Apps updated to Ionic 5

This was a huge rewrite that gives you huge benefits. Apps that are multiple times faster, web components, better design, new icons, and much more.

Here's just a couple of items from the Ionic 5 announcement blog post that you will have to look forward to.

New iOS Designs for iOS 13

New animations and a swipe to close modal

Brand new Ionicons with lots more choices

There's lots more on top of that, check out their post for more details.

Backend app building completely modernized (no more PhoneGap Build!)

PhoneGap Build has worked great, but it held us back in certain areas. We have retooled our backend systems so we can provide a more native build that makes your apps faster and keeps them up to date.

With this new system we are hoping to be able to provide automated app store submissions, fingers crossed!

Update to the WKWebview

Along with the Ionic 5 update, we are now using the WKWebview for iOS. This makes iOS apps much faster, but more importantly it is required for any iOS apps starting in April of 2020. We will release a separate post about this shortly.

Update to a better login system (JWT)

Using JSON Web Tokens not only makes your app more secure, but it also allows us to build API based membership features. In the future you will be able to grab WordPress content from the WP-API and check if the user is permitted to see it first. This is huge!

New App Dashboard design

We updated the app dashboard design and app customizer settings to make things more clear.

Tons of code updates under the hood for better stability

Since we rewrote almost everything, we improved as we went. There are too many little improvements to name, but a few examples are better push notification settings page, improvements to in app purchases, and better skeleton loaders.

Some of the new page templates

New Features

Here's the great new features you will get because of these updates:

• Easier app store submission
• API based membership content (this is huge)
• Faster apps out of the box
• Better default design, more custom page templates

That's just the tip of the iceberg. The really important thing is what these updates will allow us to do in the future.

AppPresser 4 gives us the foundation we need for more customization, more new features, more stability, and easier future updates.

New Pricing

We have some changes coming to pricing, which we will announce in the next couple of weeks.

We are removing renewal discounts as of March 1st 2020, so if you purchase before that you can still get 35% off your yearly renewal.

How do I get AppPresser 4?

We are still doing some final testing, but we hope to let some beta testers try out version 4 very soon (no need to email us about testing yet).

Because this is such a major update, there are some breaking changes. Some apps will be able to update without much trouble, but apps with a lot of customization will require some effort.

Migrating from AP3 to AP4

We will create a migration guide and lots of documentation in the next few weeks, but here is a short list of some breaking changes.

This migration section only applies if you are migrating from v3 to v4. If you already have an app in the app stores, or you are creating a new app, you don’t need to worry. AppPresser 3 apps will remain unchanged.

Much of the app building process will work the same, but there are several breaking changes. Here is a list:

• Custom CSS selectors - Ionic 4 has new selectors, we will document these in our migration guide.
• Ionic tags - Some Ionic tags changed, for example <button ion-button... is now <ion-button... This only matters for custom HTML pages.
• Login authentication - AppPresser 4 will require plugin updates, and a new plugin for JWT authentication.
• Offline assets will be called "files", and any path in your custom HTML pages will change from "assets/whatever.jpg" to "files/whatever.jpg"
• Device builds are handled differently, you don't need a PhoneGap Build account. Build download links will be emailed instead of using a QR code.

Please see our migration guide when AppPresser 4 is released for more information.

Questions?

You probably have some questions, please hold off on emailing us about them. We will be releasing more information very soon, as well as holding a webinar or two. We are not accepting beta testers yet, but hopefully soon.

Make sure to sign up on our email list below to get notified about AppPresser 4.