Progressive Web Apps - PWA Explained | Code Companion

Progressive Web Apps or Applications | PWA

If you have heard a lot about progressive Web Apps and Microsoft, today we’ll do a deep dive and know what is exactly a Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are. Back in 2015, in an article written by Alex Russell who’s a Google engineerand there he outlined the requirements for a progressive web application since then the whole industry has been working towards PWAs by integrating into their browsers.

Progressive web apps | PWA

So, Google Chrome supports it now, an edge will be supporting it at Redstone for and yes, so does the safari. Now, what makes a progressive web app unique, are these web applications that can work offline and, in the background, and that’s done through a thing called service workers.

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Progressive Web Apps circumvent the App Store, allowing the users to find their Apps

Now that there are thousands of applications on the Apple App Store and even a lot on the Google Play Store. A study shows that 60% of Apps have never been downloaded or used.

The App Store and the Play Store generally causes major unavoidable problems for developers, they must work cautiously to avoid breaking the rules. The App Store is not that great for SEO (search engine optimization), because the listings are removed from Google search results. Progressive Web Apps circumvent the App Store, allowing the users to find their Apps with normal URLs and Google search.

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why does Google Microsoft see this PWA as the future of app development?

You’ll hear a lot of these you can think of them, as it works in the background they pull in notifications and it also caches material and that’s how it works offline. There’s also no Chrome here, meaning, not the Chrome browser but when you launch a PWA it doesn’t look like you’re in the browser, but it looks like it’s an application.

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It’s actually kind of eerie how it works but you don’t get the browser controls it’s just standard web application stuff that’s what makes these things really compelling. When you’re using them it’s really hard to tell the difference, for instance, Instagram have a PWA so if you go to Instagram.com on your Android phone, assuming, it’s a modern one and you log in, you’ll be asked if you want to pin this to your Start screen or your application screen, and it receives notifications once you do that & when you open that app it looks just like the regular Instagram application.

In fact, the scrolling is better than a native app of Android which tells you a lot why does Google Microsoft see this as the future of app development. Now, that’s kind of cost prohibitive so it’s very expensive for small organizations to make an application.

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Especially if you won’t put it on ios and android, remember most still target iOS, first with Android coming, second, despite the fact that Android is the larger market share this really comes down to an issue of cost but there’s actually a little bit more going on here first as Google pushing and they have a pretty awesome store.

Last time, I checked it’s actually a really good point, Google’s business model is actually on the web and it’s not really the App Store nor is it selling Android devices. Android is getting to use Google services and going on the web if every company created their own native application and it pulls data directly from the site without going through the web.

Native hybridization of Web apps!

Google actually wants this to happen, because by using a progressive web application you’re using the web and you’re using analytics, also, you’re using their ad stuff and you’re getting everything account against SEO as well.

What is the future of Progressive Web applications?

Web Apps allows web developers to deliver web-based applications that are competing or even out-perform Native web applications. A Progressive Web App uses cutting-edge web capabilities to deliver an easy app-like user experience.

PWAs bring the best features we expect from native apps to the mobile browser experience. With a PWA, the users always have the modern version of the app. That never has to disturb with the updates. Continuous deployments bring the new features and fixes instantly.

Hybrid mobile App Developments

How will PWA’s affect the Microsoft Store?

Now, the question is how will PWA’s affect the Microsoft Store, so Microsoft recently talked about this and it’s really interesting, that, there is the difference, but PWA right now if you ever say on Android device and you open your Chrome browser or even edge browser and you go to Twitter.com like I said login it will ask you to pin it to the app screen, the problem there is you can still have the Instagram app installed and then have a PWA installed as well living side by side.

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And there’s serve a discoverability issue. I’m not really sure here what Google is going to do or even Apple is going to do regarding PWA in their stores, but I can tell you, what Microsoft is going to do. They’re going to put PWA directly into the store and how they do this is through the universal Windows platform they basically have a bridge that supports this.

So they’re taking PWA wrapping it in the AppX wrapper putting it into the store, but, you also get other features there, for instance, you get live tiles you get Cortana you can get in-app purchases if there were those there you also get deeper analytics and you get discoverability.

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Because the consumer is basically going to launch the app store the Microsoft Store. They are going to search for, uber or Twitter and what’s going to be there an application now it’s going to be technically PWA. But will the consumer know? No, because there’s no chrome way and they’re not launching it and it doesn’t look like a web browser. In the coming weeks, any big name-brand apps out there that are PW ways and our developers embracing this so the answer here will surprise you, maybe not, since there is a lot of PWAs, including Google Maps. Yes, this already works an edge on Android and you can pin it to your Start screen and have a PWA of Google Maps that uses your location and works just like the app itself

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Who are using Progressive Web Apps?

A lot of companies that have switched over to a PWA have experienced intensive engagement and conversions.

The top companies that have also made the switch to Progressive Web Appslike:

• Alibaba
• Fandango
• Flipkart
• Forbes
• Jumia Travel
• Lancôme
• Ola
• Twitter
• Virgin America
• The Washington Post

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