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Progressive Web Apps are all the rage in the development industry, because by now an app doesn't necessarily have to be developed natively to be included in the various app stores. This is not the only reason why appleute are increasingly focusing on PWA development.

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Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are revolutionizing mobile application development. The idea of progressive web app development - free if you try it yourself (read Program app yourself) - is to provide all the capabilities of applications developed natively with web technologies.

Google wants to make PWAs the best practice for mobile app development. Most people think that the only way for an app to reach its audience is through the Play Store (Android) and the App Store (iOS) leads. This is a widespread misconception.

As you know, many classic websites come with an app. To navigate between the web browser and the app, a user has to switch from the browser to the store and then back to the content in the app. This can become quite cumbersome. The proponents of the progressive web app development break free and break up the smartphone landscape.

The website itself becomes a progressive application. PWAs unify what was previously a hybrid of app and website. A user can install the application (the website) directly on their smartphone, whether it's running on an Android or iOS operating system. The progressive app can be easily accessed from the browser. A shortcut from the browser can be pinned to the home screen of the smartphone to make the app easily accessible. The PWA can be opened whenever the user wants and provides as much functionality as a native app, with the difference that it is mainly developed using web technologies. Here you can find more about the comparison between progressive web apps, native apps and hybrid apps.

With a Progressive Web Application you can send and receive notifications. Offline mode (without internet connection) is one of the main motivations for users to develop native applications today. Now you can Developer create free web applications that have a proper offline mode. In fact, web technologies are supported by both iOS and Android. With a PWA, it is possible to develop a single application for three different environments: the World Wide Web, iOS and Android. Web app development frees up the smartphone landscape! PWA lends itself to this because the Android and iOS operating systems are written in different programming languages: iOS apps run on Objective-C / Swift, while Android apps run on Kotlin and Java (this way to the appleute stack). A web app works on iOS, Android and the web from a single code base! What you need to know about the Progressive Web App Development need to know is the following: It is possible to use a number of frameworks or to rely on native programming from the beginning. appleute sticks to the use of Angular. This is to standardize the development of various web applications.

Web app experience

To the user, progressive web apps feel indistinguishable from native mobile apps. Here read more about the differences between native and web apps. In the years when the first smartphones came on the market, there were a number of new functions that only classic App Designer and -Developer appreciated:

Offline push notifications
Camera use (video and micro recordings)
GPS
Home screen pinning
many more

That has changed. The web platform has a lot of features and fulfills UI and UX expectations that were once reserved exclusively for native apps. It's 2021, and appleute has never seen such a high number of requests for web app development services. The trend is real and is being embraced by large enterprises: look at how Twitter can be installed like a native app (works offline, camera integration, receives push notifications, etc.).

appleute loves programming and wants to share his knowledge. Curious how to create a Website turned into a PWA?

How to turn a website into a Progressive Web App - free tools available

You run a website and want to convert it into a Progressive Web App. The following simple steps are necessary:

Open the Lighthouse tool in Chrome Devtools and perform an audit on your website. In addition to performance and SEO metrics, it will show you how to change your website to qualify as a PWA. Load times and accessibility are key. The majority of websites meet these criteria.

2. make sure that the website runs offline. Previously, a website ran in a single thread in an open tab. Most websites can now register a service worker, which is a background script that performs caching syncs in the background and listens for push notifications. The setup is very seamless:

Check if the browser supports the service worker function.
After verification, set a JS file as the worker.
If the setting is successful, the Service Worker is enabled in the Application tab in Chrome Devtools.
In the application tab (for web app analysis and debug), you can paste your code directly into the worker file or use a library - appleute suggests Workbox - to do the work for you. You can also determine if the servicer is working smoothly and test functionalities manually. Set up URL caching in the app for offline viewing.
Create a manifest.json file that contains icons and metadata relevant to your web app.
The web app is available for installation on most native smartphones. Of course, it can still be listed in the native app stores (Play Store, App Store), and even in the Microsoft Store.