Introduction

In this chapter, you will learn how to access some common features of a device, such as the camera, contact list, e-mail, and maps. Some of these features can be written in a JavaScript-only environment, but the performance is not on a par with native support.

Cordova has a very well supported community with many plugins. You may want to check out http://plugins.cordova.io/ to understand what is out there. Luckily, you don't need to deal with these plugins directly. You will use the Ionic Native (http://ionicframework.com/docs/v2/native/) service on top of Cordova and Angular 2. Keep in mind that you have to use Ionic Native instead of ngCordova for Ionic 2 because of compatibility issues. You can only use ngCordova for Ionic 1.x.