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Mobile-optimized web apps

Owned by Nathan Wailes
Last updated: Jul 27, 2017
4 min read


Progressive Web Apps

How-to
Criticisms / downsides of PWAs
  • 2017.07.25 - Philly Devshop - Apple’s refusal to support Progressive Web Apps is a detriment to future of the web
    • HN discussion
    • Progressive Web Applications (PWAs) are one of the most exciting and innovative things happening in web development right now.
    • Except for is one major problem — While Google has embraced the technology and added support for it in Chrome for Android, Apple has abstained from adding support to mobile Safari. All they’ve done is say that it is “Under Consideration.”
    • [Paragraph summary: iOS still makes up a big portion of the first-world / upscale app market.]
    • Service workers are what allow you to do all the awesome and exciting things that PWA’s represent. Mobile Safari’s lack of support for them effectively kills the the ability for PWA’s to work for half of all U.S. users — which in turn kills their feasibility as a whole.
    • Here are a list of things you still can’t do with mobile safari due to Apple’s refusal to support them:
      • Create an app loading screen
      • Use push notifications
      • Add offline support
      • Create an initial app UI to load instantly
      • Prompt installation to the home screen through browser-guided dialog
    • I’ve tried pushing the apple ‘native-like’ experience in mobile safari as far as I could — but it has some serious bugs, and Apple just doesn’t care about them.
    • Apple treats web apps like second class citizens because they don’t generate money like native apps in the app store.
    • On Cordova: I’ve personally never been a fan. It feels like a hack to run my app in a webview/native wrapper. I tried learning and using Ionic/Angular, and it just never felt right to me. And as soon as you introduce a hybrid wrapper, you’ve still got to go through the app store.
    • You do have one other option though, and it is an amazing one, from the engineers at Facebook: React Native. The navigation is fluid and native-like, and the entire app feels like a real iOS app — because it is one. I do think that in the future we will see some form of the tech behind PWA’s and React Native come together for the best of both worlds.
    • Apple thinks you should learn a completely different and more complex programming language (Objective-C/Swift) and maintain a completely separate code base for iOS. This effectively hurts small dev shops, stifles innovation, makes startups much more difficult to get going.
    • We can’t just hop on the PWA train and forget about native apps completely.



Misc

  • What are the advantages / disadvantages of a responsive website vs. a mobile website vs. a native app?
    • Links:
      • Web-only: A 'responsive' website vs. a separate mobile website (eg 'm.facebook.com').
      • StackExchange - Developing cross platform mobile application
      • StackOverflow - making a mobile application from an existing website
      • Responsive web vs. native apps:
        • Thinkapps.com - Responsive web vs native apps
          • responsive design has two main advantages: time and money.
          • While responsive web is able to self-adapt to any device automatically, adaptive web has pre-set sizes in which it is able to be shown.
          • Drawbacks of responsive web:
            • Responsive web needs an Internet connection to work.
            • Responsive web usually suffers from poor performance on mobile devices because certain components — such as images and animations — are too slow and heavy.
            • Moreover, users will have to wait for the browser to download the entire page and its elements in order to see it. This can lead to a huge consumption of data, battery, and also time.
            • if you build an app that is going to be the same for each OS and the web, it will never feel native to users. They likely won’t use your product for long because it just won’t feel natural.
            • Lack of Push Notifications, Other Functionality
          • Overall, native apps are a better (but more expensive) option than responsive web.
            • [NW: This seems like a clear overstatement.]
          • if your site is just about company information and you would like to invest a small budget, a responsive website might work fine. But, if you are looking for an engaging experience, and your site is transactional, needing more interactions than read and go, I would highly recommend [you] invest in a native application.
        • ModoLabs - My website is responsive, so why do I need a mobile app?
          • I didn't find this extremely persuasive.
          • users prefer the experience of a native mobile app
          • they present navigation, content, and functionality in a way specifically optimized for the measurably different ways in which people actually use their mobile devices
          • Native apps can engage users with push notifications and integration with platform and device capabilities unavailable on display-only websites
          • Users who encounter mobile web experiences that force them to tap, search, copy, and navigate too many times will often give up on their original task. The deep-linking capabilities of a native app keep users focused, allowing them to complete their goal quickly and efficiently.
          • app performance is a significant improvement over a responsive web site, saving end-users time and frustration.
    • Misc opinions
      • "I actually am hugely in favour of "web-apps" .. mobile optimzied web... philosophically.  In certain cases one or the other is better of course." - John-Paul

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