Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

Progressive Web Apps

 

Reduce App and Web development costs. Speed up your existing websites. Give users off line access.

 

Use 1. Speed up your website

There are many ways to use Progressive Web App technology.  At the very basic you can use the technology to massively speed up your website.

Google rewards fast sites as do users.

It can be possible to retro fit PWA architecture to an existing website.

Ask us if we can fit it to your website

 

Use 2. Using PWA as an alternative to App development.

If you have ever developed an app, you will know the costs of developing and maintaining code for 2 platforms, iOS and Android and even 3 if you include Windows.

Now that Ios and Android support PWA on their app stores then there is a huge cost saving opportunity by developing a PWA.  One code base, 3 platforms.

If you don’t know what a Progressive Web App (PWA) is, they are web sites that can create the same great user experience and usability of native apps.  In particular:

• they are super fast  speed -“Google will elevate PWAs in search results. Google has already pushed responsive web design into the mainstream by prioritizing responsive websites in search results. It did the same thing to promote sites that loaded faster. We expect Google to do this with progressive web apps and raise their ranking in search results in 2019.”Join The Progressive Web App Movement Forrester Report – February 2019
• can be used offline – for example, if you are a travelling salesman this has huge advantages if you want to show people your products but have little or poor internet connection.
• can inherit functionality hitherto only availabe in native apps: for example, with a PWA – because they have “app” like capabilities then customers will be able to log into your website as easily as they log into your app, using touch or face recognition.

They are essentially both websites and native apps:  there is one code base for all three

If your website is a built with PWA technology then you benefit from the dramatic speed and usability improvements and hence higher conversion rates.

If your primary offering is a native app then you benefit from only having one code base for both native iOS and Android (and web).  And of course you won’t have to wait for authorisation delays every time you make small bug changes (on iOS) or pay sales commission to Apple.

 

Are PWAs available from the Playstore or App store?

You can register your PWA with the Google Playstore and users can download it in the normal way.  They can also add for their home screen directly from the app homepage.  This is also possible for iOS. Apple are yet to allow PWA’s to be unploaded to the app store but iOS users can add the PWA directly to home screen on iPhone (though not as easily as on Android)

 

Should you be considering converting your site/app to a PWA?

You’ve just spent a huge amount of time, money, and political capital building a responsive website. You’re exhausted. You’re still recovering from the trauma. Can’t you just take a break? No, not really, you can celebrate for a minute but now it’s time to move on to the next thing.  Check this site for examples of other companies that have invested in PWA’s and read their stories.

 

Will PWAs replace Native apps?

Yes, possibly. The web is moving to mobile and for mobile to work the “site” or “app” needs to be very fast.  The cost of developing and maintaining native apps is expensive and unless you have deep pockets, prohibitively expensive.  There is no logic to maintaining two app platforms when one will do.

Anyone launching an app from scratch would also find it difficult to compete in the app stores as they are currently configured.  App stores tend to be dominated by the very popular apps and there is little way of gaming or promoting your own app above others. Conversely PWA’s rank in search engines as they are fully indexable.