1) What is a progressive web app?
Answer: The concept of the progressive web app (PWA) was approached by Google in late 2015. They are basically web applications (Website) but have look and feel like other native mobile apps. The progressive web app enabled websites can offer functionalities such as working offline, push notifications, and device hardware access.
2) Do all browsers support PWA?
Answer: Yes. All modern mobile and desktop internet browsers (including Microsoft Edge) do support the technologies used to build the PWA and the standard itself. Obviously, the best support can be found at source, in Google Chrome.
3) What are business benefits of PWA implementation?
Answer: The implementation of PWA will bring the following benefits:
- Cost optimization (one team and one technology instead of separate units for browsers and individual mobile applications)
- Better visibility in search engines (more about that below)
- Improved page performance
- Easier and more cost-effective acquisition of new users when compared to the mobile application
- Increased user engagement, which translates into an increase in conversion and decrease of the bounce rate
- No common problems related to mobile applications (long deployment and update times, necessity of downloading through a dedicated store app, Apple / Google verification)
- Integration with any existing (or new) system operating as a data source – back-end
4) What makes an app a PWA?
Answer: There are some key principles a web app should try to observe to be identified as a PWA. It should be:
- Discoverable, so the contents can be found through search engines.
- Installable, so it’s available on the device’s home screen.
- Linkable, so you can share it by simply sending a URL.
- Network independent, so it works offline or with a poor network connection.
- Progressive, so it’s still usable on a basic level on older browsers, but fully-functional on the latest ones.
- Re-engageable, so it’s able to send notifications whenever there’s new content available.
- Responsive, so it’s usable on any device with a screen and a browser — mobile phones, tablets, laptops, TVs, fridges, etc.
- Safe, so the connection between you and the app is secured against any third parties trying to get access to your sensitive data.
5) How do Progressive Web Apps work?
Answer: From the technical point of view, a PWA is a web application built with HTML and JavaScript, to which we add progressive features (mostly with manifest and service worker files). The implementation process of a PWA is no different from that of a regular web app.
A PWA lives on top of fullscreen browser view (without the browser’s address bar and navigation), and can provide the same or even better experience than a native app. It can perform background tasks, work offline, and support push notifications.
PWA strongly relies on caching – it is capable of caching web assets and requests on your device. Moreover, it can save user-generated data when the user is offline and push it to a server when the user becomes online again.
6) What are some disadvantages of PWA?
Answer: Disadvantages of the progressive web app:
- ** Less access to system features:** Currently, Progressive Web Apps have limited access to native system features than native apps. Also, all browsers are not supporting its full features but maybe in near future, it will be the new standard of development.
- More Android – Less Apple’s iOS: progressive web apps are currently, most supported by Android devices. Apple’s iOS is only partially supporting.
- No review standard: progressive web apps don’t need any kind of review system which is applicable for native apps from the app store. It may make the process faster but lack of promotional benefits from the app store.
7) What are the differences between a Hybrid Mobile App and a Progressive Web App?
Answer: A hybrid mobile app usually refers to an application built using a combination of web and native technology that is distributed via a native app store. These apps go through Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc’s app store review process.
A Progressive Web App is an application built using web technology that runs in the browser and may be added to the home screen. They do not need to be distributed via native app stores, but can be included in them. Microsoft includes PWAs in its Microsoft Store as of 2018 and Trusted Web Activities make it easier to submit PWAs to the Google Play Store.
Some hybrid mobile app platforms include PhoneGap (aka Cordova), Appcelerator Titanium, and Ionic. You don’t need a platform to create a hybrid app, but they are helpful because they’ve already taken care of creating a bridge between native APIs and JavaScript APIs.
Progressive Web Apps simply run in the browser so they can be built with basic HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
8) What are some requirements to make the website installable as PWA?
Answer: To make the website installable, it needs the following things in place:
- A web manifest, with the correct fields filled in
- The website to be served from a secure (HTTPS) domain
- An icon to represent the app on the device
- A service worker registered, to make the app work offline (this is required only by Chrome for Android currently)