What is a Progressive Web App(PWA)?
Build once, deploy everywhere. We’ve heard it
all before haven’t we?
Discussion now surfaces on a ‘new’ type of
application. One that is being the progressive web app (or PWA, if you must).
So what is a PWA?
The core idea, essentially, is that a
progressive web app will function well on every device form factor, for every
user, for every browser.
“By taking the best functionality of native apps (those designed for a
specific operating system that leverage device functionality to increase speed
and performance) and enabling access via a browser and a URL, PWAs can solve
real business challenges,” said Will Morris, managing partner of
specialist web design company Alchemy Digital.
MobiLens reported in September 2016 that each
month, 51% of UK adults install zero apps on average. There are currently more
than two million apps on the App Store and Google Play, rendering it extremely
difficult to be ‘discovered’ by users.
The re-engagability factor
Further here then, a PWA should be able
to work offline and PWAs are also what we might call
‘re-engagable’ i.e. the user can go away and come back to the app without
having to re-load it.
“The increased speed to
market, competitive edge and low cost of PWAs in comparison to regular apps
come hand in hand with their low CapEx and OpEx. Businesses can get their apps
to market much faster because they are not awaiting approval from store
platforms and can be made available instantly. This also goes for continuous
delivery of maintenance updates: no application store approval periods, and no
need for the user to wait to get their hands on the app, since PWAs are installed
on the device by simply adding it to the home page,” said Morris.
Google’s developer pages discuss progressive
web apps more here, it appears that the
search giant itself first proposed the idea back in 2015.
Smashing clarity
Kevin Ferrugia explains more on Smashing Magazine here and
says that progressive web apps take advantage of the much larger web ecosystem,
plugins and community and the relative ease of deploying and maintaining a
website when compared to a native application in the respective app stores.
“For those of you who develop on both mobile
and web, you’ll appreciate that a website can be built in less time, that an
API does not need to be maintained with backwards-compatibility (all users will
run the same version of your website’s code, unlike the version fragmentation
of native apps) and that the app will generally be easier to deploy and
maintain,” writes Ferrugia.
Spin or substance? No this is real… and there
is quite a maker movement driving the notion of the PWA and we might well
include Gmail offline as a prime
example.
Regards
Pralhad
Jadhav
Senior Manager @
Knowledge Repository
Khaitan
& Co
Upcoming Lecture | ACTREC - BOSLA Annual lecture series (125th birth anniversary of father of library
science, Padmashree Dr. S. R. Ranganathan) on Saturday, 12th August 2017 at Advanced Centre for Treatment,
Research and Education in Cancer (ACTREC), Kharghar, Navi Mumbai. (Theme | 'MakerSpace')
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