To be specific--and maybe this only pertains to version 1.x--I found managing navigation state in our largest app to be quite clumsy and at times, downright perplexing. In Swift, managing navigation state is relatively easy to reason about, though it is a bit more laborious to implement.
The bigger issues were things like having access to leveraging background processes via Cordova. At last check, there was a plugin for backgrounding the app, but it came with a big, red warning that it may cause issues with Apple's App Store approval process.
Another issue was the dismal state of background geolocation. There is a commercial plugin; however, I found the maintenance schedule to be quite lacking. As well, the maintainer of the plugin was quite abrasive and impolite toward users raising valid issues.
Agreed. For me, that was another reason to move away from Ionic. That its largest dependency came to differ so greatly from that of the previous version, was enough for me. If I was going to be forced into learning something new, then Swift it would be.
We used Ionic 1.x for a few projects. We found that for relatively basic, brochure-ware apps, it worked just fine. However, for some of the more complex apps, we really fought the lack of support/options in the Cordova plugin space. This, of course, is not the fault of the Ionic team, but it does create a frustrating development experience that played a large part in us abandoning it as an option.
This was also our first experience with Angular. I really wanted to like Angular, but after more than a year of development, we left it for greener pastures. I understand that Angular 2/Ionic 2 are touted as being significantly better, but while all those improvements were being made, we invested our efforts in learning and building with Swift. I can say that we are delighted with the outcome and have no real inclination to leave it for an alternative.
Do you have something specific in mind, regarding the low-end of the market? Maybe a couple of examples? I'm really interested in understanding what you mean.
The bigger issues were things like having access to leveraging background processes via Cordova. At last check, there was a plugin for backgrounding the app, but it came with a big, red warning that it may cause issues with Apple's App Store approval process.
Another issue was the dismal state of background geolocation. There is a commercial plugin; however, I found the maintenance schedule to be quite lacking. As well, the maintainer of the plugin was quite abrasive and impolite toward users raising valid issues.