Capawesome April 2026 Update¶

The Capawesome April update is here! This update includes new features and improvements for Capawesome Cloud and our Plugins. Let's take a look at the most important changes.

Build and deploy your Capacitor app with Capawesome Cloud

Blog¶

We published several new articles this month. Here are the highlights:

Live Updates vs server.url: The Right Way to Update Your Capacitor App Remotely — Many teams reach for server.url to ship updates without an app store review, but the option was never designed for production. We compare both approaches across offline support, performance, security, and app store compliance.
How to Build and Deploy iOS Apps Without Owning a Mac — Apple's iOS toolchain only runs on macOS, but that doesn't mean you need to buy a Mac to ship Capacitor apps. We walk through three ways to get past the macOS requirement and show how to trigger signed iOS builds from Windows or Linux.
Apple Now Requires Xcode 26 for App Store Submissions — As of April 28, every iOS submission to App Store Connect must be built with Xcode 26 and the iOS 26 SDK. We break down what this means for Capacitor apps and how Capawesome Cloud customers are already covered by default.

Cloud¶

Faster API Response Times¶

We rolled out major backend infrastructure improvements that reduce Capawesome Cloud API response times by up to 5x for all customers. This means faster update checks via the Live Update SDK and a more responsive experience when navigating the Cloud Console. No action needed on your end — every app and organization benefits automatically.

Android Keystore Generator¶

We launched the Android Keystore Generator — a free, browser-based tool for creating PKCS#12 keystores (.p12 files) for signing your Android apps. It produces RSA 2048-bit keys with SHA-256 signing that meet all Google Play requirements, and your private key never leaves your device thanks to the Web Crypto API. No keytool, no command-line flags, no local tooling required. This is especially useful when you're setting up CI/CD pipelines and need a keystore quickly.

iOS Certificate Generator¶

We also launched the iOS Certificate Generator — a free, browser-based tool that simplifies one of the most frustrating parts of iOS development. You can create a Certificate Signing Request (CSR), upload it to the Apple Developer Portal, and convert Apple's .cer file into a ready-to-use .p12 bundle, all without macOS or Keychain Access. Just like the keystore generator, your private key stays on your device.

SSO Domain Verification¶

Single Sign-On now includes a domain verification step. Before members can sign in via SSO, you must verify ownership of your email domain by adding a TXT record to your DNS configuration. This prevents unauthorized SSO provider registration and ensures only domain owners can enable SSO for their domain. Once verified, new users matching the verified domain are provisioned automatically when they sign in through your Identity Provider — no invitation required.

With this safeguard in place, SSO is no longer locked behind the Enterprise plan — it's now available on the Business plan as well, so smaller teams can adopt SSO without an enterprise contract.

Viewer Role¶

A new Viewer role is now available for organization members. Viewers can see apps and app resources but cannot make changes, which is ideal for stakeholders, auditors, or QA team members who only need read-only access. You can assign the role when inviting new members or change it for existing members in the organization settings.

Improved Webhook Message Layout¶

We significantly improved the message layout for outgoing webhooks when using the Discord, Slack, or Microsoft Teams format. Notifications now include the build number, platform, status, branch, commit hash, commit message, and duration in a clean, scannable layout — so your team can see what shipped at a glance:

:white_check_mark: Build #2 (Android) succeeded for Demo App

Branch: main
Commit: 8d7da2d — chore: update .gitignore
Duration: 1m 17s

Combined with Automations, this makes it easy to keep your team informed in chat as soon as a build finishes or a deployment goes out.

Capawesome CLI 4.7.0¶

We released Capawesome CLI 4.7.0 with a new apps:liveupdates:create command that builds and deploys live updates in one step using Cloud Runners, plus app linking, app transfer, ad hoc environment variables, and source map detection. Check out the release blog post for the full breakdown.

Plugins¶

Android Edge-to-Edge Support¶

The Android Edge-to-Edge Support plugin received several reliability fixes. Edge-to-edge is now detected at runtime instead of inferred from the API level, the top margin is only applied on Android 15+, and the bottom margin no longer double-counts when the keyboard is visible. If you rely on this plugin to handle system bars on modern Android, we recommend upgrading to the latest version.

Audio Recorder¶

The Audio Recorder plugin adds a new uri option to the startRecording(...) method. You can now specify exactly where the recorded audio file should be saved instead of relying on the temporary cache location:

import { AudioRecorder } from '@capawesome-team/capacitor-audio-recorder';
import { Filesystem, Directory } from '@capacitor/filesystem';

const { uri } = await Filesystem.getUri({
  directory: Directory.Data,
  path: 'recording.m4a',
});

await AudioRecorder.startRecording({ uri });

If you don't pass a uri, recordings still land in the cache directory as before. This option is available on Android and iOS.

OAuth¶

The OAuth plugin received several improvements to the login(...) method. A new uiLocales option lets you request a specific UI language from the Identity Provider, and prompt and loginHint are now correctly forwarded to the authorization request on iOS:

import { OAuth } from '@capawesome-team/capacitor-oauth';

const result = await OAuth.login({
  configuration: { /* ... */ },
  uiLocales: ['de', 'en'],
  prompt: 'login',
  loginHint: 'user@example.com',
});

This release also fixes a bug where the AppAuth session was not resumed when the app was reopened via a URL on iOS.

Speech Recognition¶

The Speech Recognition plugin now supports full on-device speech recognition. Audio stays on the device, which means better privacy and offline support for voice-driven apps:

import { SpeechRecognition } from '@capawesome-team/capacitor-speech-recognition';

await SpeechRecognition.startListening({
  language: 'en-US',
  requireOnDeviceRecognition: true,
});

Three new APIs power this:

getOnDeviceLanguages() — query installed and downloadable on-device languages. Available on Android 33+ and iOS 26+.
downloadOnDeviceLanguage() — trigger an on-device language model download on demand. Available on Android 34+ and iOS 26+.
requireOnDeviceRecognition option on startListening(...) — force recognition to run fully on-device, never falling back to the cloud. Available on Android 33+ and iOS 13+.

This is a great fit for healthcare apps, journaling tools, or any voice-driven interface in low-connectivity environments — anywhere privacy or reliability matters.

Try Capawesome Cloud¶

If you're looking for a powerful cloud platform to build, deploy, and manage your Capacitor apps, check out Capawesome Cloud. It provides native builds, live updates, app store publishing, and more — all in one place.

Book a Capawesome Cloud Demo

Conclusion¶

April was mostly a Cloud-focused month for us, with only a handful of plugin updates landing on the open source side. On the Cloud side, faster API responses, free browser-based signing tools, and SSO domain verification make it easier and safer to ship Capacitor apps at any scale. On the Plugins side, on-device speech recognition and the new uri option for audio recordings still unlock entirely new use cases for voice-driven and media apps.

And we're not slowing down — we have something big in the works for May that we can't wait to share. Stay tuned.

If you have any questions or need help, feel free to join the Capawesome Discord server. And don't forget to subscribe to the Capawesome newsletter to stay updated on the latest news and updates.