Everything You Need to know About Progressive Web Apps

If you are a coder, a developer or a web technology geek, then you must have heard about Progressive Web Apps. But if you don’t know anything yet, here’s everything you need to know. Now what exactly a progressive web app is?.

Progressive Web Apps are Web Apps which combines the best features of Web and Native Apps. It is progressive because it is constantly progressing. It gives you exact same feeling like Native App but it is not the Native app

What is a Progressive Web App?

Technically a Progressive Web App (PWA) is a term used to denote a new methodology. Progressive Web Apps are a hybrid of regular web pages (or websites) and a mobile application. This new application model attempts to combine features offered by most modern browsers with the benefits of mobile experience.

Basically, PWA’s are the clone of the web app. It is just a web page which behaves like a mobile app which can be downloaded from the App Store/ PlayStore.

You might have noticed that sometimes while surfing any website you get a prompt if you would like to “Add to Home Screen”.  Once you give the thumbs up to this prompt, VOILA! PWA gets added to their home screen. Once open from the home screen, it can even hide the browser UI controls and appear as an app. Now that a PWA.

More than 40% of the users bounce from the websites that take more than 3 seconds to load. PWA is a solution for this “Web Obesity Epidemic” faced by the users. PWA makes it easy for the users to get to what they want.

Why Progressive Web Apps?

Progressive Web Apps came into existence because there are some problems with the Native Apps. You might be facing problems like do you have enough space all time? or a lot of available data all time? Is the app worth downloading?

According to a recent survey, people are turning away from Android/iOS apps, because not all app experiences are satisfying or worthwhile. There might be a lot of apps on your phone which you might not use regularly sometimes apps only works well when the phone has an active internet connection.

Also, the highlight of these PWA’s are these apps are fully responsive and have the same functionality as that of the website. So why waste your precious disk space and your internet data on your smartphone by installing the native app?

Moreover, these app needs to updated every week! But Progressive Web Apps are within some KBs and are automatically updated. Thanks to service worker. In short, Progressive web apps combine everything that is great about a native mobile application with everything that is great about a mobile website.

Highlights of PWAs:

• Progressive: The word progressive means it works for every user, regardless of browser choice because they’re built with progressive enhancement as a core tenet.
• Responsive: Automatically adjustable to any form: desktop, mobile, tablet etc.
• Load Time: Progressive Web Apps are instantly available
• App-like: Feels like a mobile app with app-style interactions since it’s built on the app shell model.
• Fresh: Always up-to-date so you do not need to update it again and again like any other Android/iOS apps.
• Safe: Served via HTTPS to ensure content is securely delivered
• Engaging: Features like push notifications, etc. makes it very engaging.
• Installable: Allows users to install the website as an app on their home screen without the taking user to an app store.
• Linkable: Easily shared via a URL and do not require complex installation.
• Cost Effective: For an app publisher, the biggest advantage is the cost saving in terms of app development and maintenance. Because it is assumed that making a website is a lot easier than making an Android App.
• Cross-Platform: Unlike any other apps, Progressive Web Apps are not restricted to any specific platform. That means you do not need to develop separate versions of an app for different platforms.

If you want to get a taste of Progressive web app then you can use apps like Ola, Flipkart, Pinterest, Twitter, Alibaba, BookMyShow, MakeMyTrip, OLX etc as all of these are PWAs. These apps will give you a nice overview of Progressive web apps.

Also Read: Twitter updates its PWA to improve and Explore more functionality