Progressive Web Apps: do we still need native apps at all?

Progressive Web Apps can be a viable solution for you

Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are a hot topic on the web right now. No wonder, they promise a user experience that should not be inferior to native apps for Android and iOS. At the same time, it should no longer be necessary to develop a separate app for each platform (especially Android and iOS), which of course involves more costs and effort.

Google defines three main features of PWAs: they must be reliable (i.e. they must work even on a bad network), fast and appealing (from the UX perspective). For the user there should be no difference whether it is a PWA or a native app.

A PWA should also be usable under bad network conditions

PWAs are the next evolution of mobile websites. While mobile websites were able to look similar to their native counterparts, the limitations were quickly apparent: lack of access to hardware-related functions, poor usability with poor Internet connections; many mobile websites looked like a copy of their native counterparts. With PWAs, this is supposed to be a thing of the past.

How does a PWA work?

The user goes to a website (e.g. with Chrome under Android or Safari under iOS) which is a PWA. Either the visited website automatically notifies the user that he can place it on his home screen (Android), or he must manually add it to the home screen (iOS). The PWA with icon and title now appears on the start screen. From a purely visual point of view, the user will not be able to tell that this is not a native app. Clicking the icon will open the PWA.

Success stories and support from big players

An example of a successful implementation of PWA comes from the social network Pinterest. By now, the user growth comes mainly from the new PWA, which is much faster and more pleasant to use than the old mobile website of Pinterest. Uber has also completed the transition to PWA, which works even in slow 2G. The conversion to PWA also proved to be a success for trivago, which was able to significantly increase the conversion rate through the push notifications made possible by PWA. What all these real examples have in common is that the move to PWA has resulted in significantly better performance and UX of the mobile website.

One of the major supporters is Microsoft, which provides a useful online tool to quickly create a PWA. Google is also a strong supporter and provides a tool called Lighthouse integrated into Google Chrome’s development tools for optimizing the quality of PWAs, which checks certain quality features and suggests solutions. Even Apple, which has been rather reluctant in this area so far, now supports PWAs since iOS 11.3.

Lighthouse attests Pinterest a very good result concerning the fulfillment of the PWA criteria.

For companies that have not yet published any apps, PWA offers the possibility to bypass the digital sales platforms and offer the PWA to visitors of the mobile website. For smaller development teams or a small development budget, developing a PWA is much more cost-effective and faster than developing a solution for every platform.

Google even allows to publish a PWA to the Google Play store. All you need is to create a basic Android project using Android Studio IDE and to setup a Google Play Developer account.

Why we can’t completely do without native apps yet

Nevertheless, native apps developed with programming languages like Java (Android) or Swift (iOS) will not disappear from our devices in the near future. Many web applications are still not optimized to keep up with their native counterparts. Even though some functions that were originally only available in native apps are now also available in web applications (e.g. push notifications or access to the camera), some hardware-related functions in particular (e.g. access to sensors) are still not available in native apps.

Furthermore, it is not yet directly possible to publish a PWA in the Apple App Store. For Google and Apple, despite their (especially in the case of Google large) support for PWA, this should be a thorn in the side that at this time PWAs can bypass the distribution platforms Play Store and App Store. Apple, in particular, is known for its strict foreclosure of alternative sources. Should apps in the future appear only as PWA and no longer in Google Play or App Store, the platform operators will not be able to earn any money by buying them in the digital shops.

App Store and Google Play are the dominant app distribution platforms

Especially for consumer-oriented apps it can be useful to offer additional native apps. Many users are used to installing apps from the Play Store or App Store. Website operators and operating system manufacturers must first make it clear to users that PWAs can be used differently. For example, iOS currently does not automatically inform users when they visit a PWA that they can install a PWA or that the website is a PWA at all.

Website operators should note that not all functions of PWAs are supported on all devices. Service workers that are necessary for PWAs because they provide the functionality essential for PWAs are not supported by Internet Explorer. iOS devices whose software is not up to date do not support PWAs at all. Users should keep their browser up to date so that they can use all functions of PWAs.

Conclusion

To answer the question from the title: it depends. PWAs are a simple yet effective way to extend mobile websites with native app functionality. Especially for applications that hardly need access to hardware-related functions, a PWA can be worthwhile, since additional native apps are no longer necessary. However, if the application requires a lot of computing power or extended access to the system and hardware, native apps are still the best choice at this point. Nevertheless, many well-known companies like Uber and Pinterest have transformed their mobile website into a PWA, while significantly increasing the number of users and user satisfaction. This makes PWA not just a hype topic, but a serious alternative and supplement to native apps.

Check out Appscope, a directory for showcasing successful Progressive Web Apps, for more concrete examples.

This article first was published in German on netkin.de, an online marketing agency from Cologne, Germany which has specialized in SEO analyses and digital strategies.