In the World, Web is the decentralized network in which 5 billion devices are connected with each other. According to official Google statements, more than 60 percent of search queries globally now come from mobile devices. So it is necessary to optimize your website and businesses for mobile devices. PWA (progressive web apps) is the new approach to optimize your website for desktop and mobile devices. Before understanding progressive web apps let understand how user access information or data from mobile devices:

1. Access Data with Native Apps :

When you think of Native Apps, the apps which are installed on mobile devices and easily accessed through icons on the home-screen are called native apps. These apps are installed using an application store like Google play store & Apple app store. Native apps offers fast and most reliable user experiences. Native apps are expensive for development, maintenance and updates. They can also have access to mobile built in features like address book, GPS, accelerometer etc.

2. Access Data With Mobile Web Browsing :

The other type of users are those who access data or information by using mobile web browsers. It has some drawbacks like browser shows page load error in slow internet connections, slow loading speed, less responsive UI experience etc. To overcome these issues, Google has introduced the progressive web apps to make mobile web browser work smarter and faster similar as native app functionalities.

Progressive Web Apps (PWA)

PWA – Progressive Web Apps is the latest trend in mobile app development using web technologies. In simple words, PWA is the web app that offers app like experience in the mobile web browser. We can call it the combination of best of web & best of apps. It is very useful for the regular visitors of the site. There has been a lot of buzz regarding PWA in terms of mobile applications. PWA is a website which is developed by various technologies offering the native app functionalities while running in the mobile web browser. It means the user doesn’t have to download the app from the app store because the user can get native app functionality (app store applications features) in the mobile web browser. It is radically improving the mobile web user experiences just as native apps. PWA grabs the quality features like push notifications, offline capability, fast speed and reliability from native apps and brings it to the web. So it will result in the increase of user engagement and make higher conversion rate.

Benefits of Progressive Web Apps

PWA is highly reliable which loads instantly and never show you page loading error and can work offline under low network conditions.

PWA works fast and responds quickly to user’s interactions with smooth animations and avoids junky scrolling. As 53% of the users abandon the site if it takes more than 3 sec of time to load.

Progressive Web Apps are engaging similar to native apps with immersive user experiences. It means PWA is install-able and can be saved on the user’s home screen without the need for an app store.

Progressive web apps are safe and always served by HTTPS ensuring proper authorization.

PWA has better SEO functionality than traditional apps. It can be easily indexed by search engines so it will have better brand visibility on the search engines as we know searches on the mobile devices are in big figures.

PWA doesn’t take any space like native apps. As per the user experience, customers will be happy to use progressive web apps. It is lighter as it weighs in KB. Native apps weight 200 MB and more. They are highly responsive that fits on any devices as desktop, mobile and tablet.

PWA is not tied up with any app store like Apple App Store and Google Play Store. It is hosted on the web server. Now you don’t have to follow up the Android & iOS app store and go through long app approval processes.

How to check website has Progressive Web Apps or Not

Below you can have an example of Flipboard & Wikipedia websites that lets you know the website has progressive web apps or not. When you will open the Flipboard URL on your mobile web browser, it looks like that:

When you press the menu button, you will see option add to the home screen as:

Note: If you prompt, press add button while adding a PWA your home screen. If the browser asks you to enter a name, then it’s not a PWA (Wikipedia) and if browser doesn’t ask to enter a name then it’s PWA (Flipboard). Below you can view both the examples:

Progressive web apps are the latest entrant in the world of mobile & web development. It is relatively the new concept which is growing rapidly and lets the user experience your brand, product and services. Ficode, leading web development company in London has realized the importance of PWA and offers excellent high-quality web development services to our clients. We help our clients with smart progressive mobile apps that are adaptive across various devices & high connectivity independent applications.