I've been experimenting with turning a work application into a PWA, but ran into a problem - all the stuff that would be great to cache was behind an authentication wall. None of the PWA examples covered this. Also, the service worker examples all had "Don't use this in production" warnings. :D
Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
21–30 of 151 posts
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#22> It is now possible to build PWAs that are indistinguishable from their native counter parts
It's not now possible, but even if it were, it would only be because the native app does not in fact use native components.
The Starbucks app already doesn't feel native, with its custom casing, fonts, navigation and behaviors.
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#23So it sounds like PWAs now make this true: > You don't have to create a native app because PWAs now offer all the functionality of a native app. That's cool. But _this_ has been true for a while: > You don't have to create a native app because a mobile-friendly website offers all the functionality you need. I use (reluctantly) a bunch of apps that really should be just websites. They don't make use of my phone's came…
> I think it's going to be an uphill battle just to convince them that in many cases, you don't even need an app. You just need a mobile website.
but, isn't it a lot less expensive to build and maintain a mobile website than to build apps for both iOS and android? wouldn't that win the argument in a lot of cases?
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being able to use the 'app' offline is a pretty important feature tho. I almost always have web access, but most apps also almost never need it (for me to do what I want to do).
This really depends on what the app is . A few of my friends use apps to look up when the next bus is coming. I use the official website. There's zero need for their apps to be available offline, they only thing they're for is looking up the next bus, which requires an internet connection. The app in this case gives absolutely no advantage to the website. I find that's the case for a lot of phone apps
Offline time tables are more than zero useful!
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#25Just be aware that ionic3 is full of bugs.
You can use angular 4 which is absolutely ready now. Ionic is full of promises (literally and
figuratively), but it is not even ready as a beta.
- I spent days to make workaround for making it work. Even basic things like routers.
- I suffered a lot with its build process. Transpiling my typescript is a so much pain for my mac. That is even worse than when I compiled java years ago.
- The need to wait 2 minutes for the live reload (when it actually reloads the change like expected) is a big loss for the web development process.
Anyway for me the point is totally true. I was only on natives and now only what you call "PWA"
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being able to use the 'app' offline is a pretty important feature tho. I almost always have web access, but most apps also almost never need it (for me to do what I want to do).
This really depends on what the app is . A few of my friends use apps to look up when the next bus is coming. I use the official website. There's zero need for their apps to be available offline, they only thing they're for is looking up the next bus, which requires an internet connection. The app in this case gives absolutely no advantage to the website. I find that's the case for a lot of phone apps
I feel like such an app could download the bus schedule and do this all offline (and let the user know it is simply an estimate)
In fact, I really wish Google Maps did this, but I guess the damage of getting it wrong once is far greater than getting it right 100 times.
Phones are pretty powerful with huge storage. If you can compute directions offline, why not buses? Saving a map or route is tiny compared to the 64, 128, or 256 GB storage on most people's devices, surely bus schedules can't be that big.
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
The author also points out (correctly) that web apps are smaller than their equivalent native app. That's nice, but I'm not terribly constrained as far as storage goes on my phone. I am constrained by battery life and data consumption.
> The author also points out (correctly) that web apps are smaller than their equivalent native app. Well, the author straw-mans that web apps are smaller. Yes, web apps are lighter than equivalent native apps. But not to anywhere near the degree described in the article. There's no legitimate reason for the Starbucks app to be 100MB. None. A native Android app equivalent to the PWA in the article would come in at ab…
Google will punish badly made web apps though, whereas the same apparently doesn't apply to native apps.
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
This really depends on what the app is . A few of my friends use apps to look up when the next bus is coming. I use the official website. There's zero need for their apps to be available offline, they only thing they're for is looking up the next bus, which requires an internet connection. The app in this case gives absolutely no advantage to the website. I find that's the case for a lot of phone apps
Offline time tables are more than zero useful!
This is a complaint of their example rather than the concept, though.
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#29> You don't have to create a native app because PWAs now offer all the functionality of a native app This is a blatant lie > Starbucks PWA: ~600KB 2.1 MB just the initial page, with no cards. The preview.js file is 751 K I do agree, however, that it's much smaller than an iOS app.
600KB gzipped?
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#30> You don't have to create a native app because PWAs now offer all the functionality of a native app This is a blatant lie > Starbucks PWA: ~600KB 2.1 MB just the initial page, with no cards. The preview.js file is 751 K I do agree, however, that it's much smaller than an iOS app.
> 2.1 MB just the initial page, with no cards
650 KB for me: https://i.imgur.com/eVoZtWQ.png
