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Progressive Web Apps
Episode 36
In this episode we'll be discussing the ins and outs of progressive web apps including what they are, some of their functionality, and what challenges/limitations they still face.
Segment 1 - What is a PWA- As mentioned on the show a few times before, PWA stands for Progressive Web App, which is the evolution of the standard web app
- If you’re new to all of this, the breakdown is rather simple:
- Website - A website is a more basic presence on the web, it delivers content to a visitor (ie blog posts, news articles) Popular examples would be news websites, tech blogs, marketing websites, and small business sites.
- Web App - Functions similarly to a website, however, acts more like an app that you’d see on your phone that performs a function. For example, there are online image editors where you can upload your photo and edit it right in the browser. This editor is a web app because the user interacts with it and computing happens (via the photo edits), content isn’t being delivered in the same way as a written article, or marketing information to the user. Unlike apps that run on your phone however, web apps are limited by the browsers limitations meaning that natively they can’t be installed, and they generally don’t have access to certain functions that natively installed apps can take advantage of, usually due to permissions/security on a given device.
- Progressive Web App - PWAs are the natural evolution of the standard web app, whose arguably biggest feature is the ability to run offline through the usage of service workers. Basically, they’re a web app that runs in the browser like any other, however, they can be installed and start leveraging more of those features that natively installed Android apps can . They’re still limited by the same restraints you can see from other webview apps and they still run the same codebase as their web app counterparts, not the native Java like other Android apps. In addition, they aren’t in a centralized location like the apps found in the Google Play store, you generally have to grab them from the web app’s website. If you visit the Twitter web app from your Chrome browser on Android you’ll see an “Add to Home Screen” button, if you do that you’re installing the Twitter PWA, but if you look up Twitter in the Google Play Store that’s a different native app
- PWAs are getting more and more powerful and a lot of the walled off features are being broken down. Just a few short years ago you couldn’t get push notifications from your browser, now they’re rather commonplace for chat and news sites.
- Accessing hardware was also an issue years ago, getting access to things like a webcam or a microphone, but now you can use a chat app like Skype right in the browser via video or voice chat - these limitations are quickly being done away with. Things like NFC access, however, is still a limitation last time I checked.
- In terms of accessing PWAs, as mentioned before, there isn’t a centralized location for them all. Unlike on Android where the Google Play Store houses the vast majority of the available native apps, PWAs are generally downloaded from the web app’s website. However, even this limitation is starting to change with new ways to list PWAs in both the Google Play Store and Microsoft Store starting to make their way into the developer toolbelt
- With these restrictions breaking down the main limitation is really with the codebase. Since a PWA isn’t written in the native language of a given platform, but rather runs more like a website/web app, Javascript does come with some limitations namely that it is a single-threaded process. However, there are workarounds for this, and Javascr
Published on 6 years, 8 months ago