PWA = progressive web app. Took me a while to figure out what that acronym was. https://pwa.rocks/
josh dance is slow
Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
81–90 of 151 posts
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#82Deciding to bet on the web is fine, but shouldn't the immediate next thought be like 'wait, why did the web win?' I think that's a far more interesting topic. It would be hard to argue that it didn't win, and it certainly wouldn't have been easy to see it coming. Someone designed a system for static hyperlinked document presentation... then years later others start shoehorning in broken bits of application-like functionality... years more along, the shoehorning continued with vigorous earnest, subverting every attempt by the W3C to prevent the web from turning into an application platform and remain a static document presentation system.
With so many hurdles to cross, so many things holding it back, why on earth did it win? Clearly not just because it was cross-platform, lots of things did that. Certainly not because it followed any even REMOTE sense of reasonable development. Remember when people used to talk about the utility of standard user interface widgets? I imagine all those people are dead now.
Personally I think it was the ability to search. That trumped absolutely every single other consideration across the board. What users wanted was to vaguely indicate what they wanted and be using that application moments later. There's no reason that HAS to be only how the web works, but it mostly is now. If something comes around that enables that elsewise... maybe consider putting a chip down on that as well.
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
not only in the stores, widgets and general integration with the os (like actionable notifications etc.) are one of the things that make native apps a necesity. To appear in the widget screen in ios or make a homescreen widget in android you must have a native app.
Actionable notifications have been a feature of PWAs in Chrome for over a year now: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2016/01/notificati...
That's progress, but that's not exactly a home screen widget. Eg, I can see "20C" and an icon showing it's rainy right on my phone's home screen. I don't think you can do that with the web yet, hopefully people are working on it.
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#84So 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…
Isn't the reason for stuff like NativeScript and React-Native that stuff like PWAs and PhoneGap weren't good enough?
Can someone with experience answer this please?
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you may misunderstand. The bus company provides live information. This is not a schedule, so cannot be downloaded ahead of time.
What if I just want the schedule though? It's not unusual that I'm underground (perhaps getting off a subway train) and don't have connection.
Some buses don't have schedules, just an estimated frequency. Or some have schedules but don't stick to them with any reliability.
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#86[deleted]
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
What if I just want the schedule though? It's not unusual that I'm underground (perhaps getting off a subway train) and don't have connection.
Some buses don't have schedules, just an estimated frequency. Or some have schedules but don't stick to them with any reliability.
Not providing schedules because some buses don't have them seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#88"With the original iPhone, there was no App Store, and no third party apps. At least not at first..."
https://www.imore.com/history-app-store-year-zero
I think this section sums it up well why there became a demand for apps, and the points are still valid today.
"But back then, the limitations of web apps, their lack of access to core functionality, their relatively poor performance compared to native apps, and the difficulties involved in charging for them proved to be insurmountable problems.
As a solution, web apps were more sour than sweet."
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#89Deciding to bet on the web is fine, but shouldn't the immediate next thought be like 'wait, why did the web win?' I think that's a far more interesting topic. It would be hard to argue that it didn't win, and it certainly wouldn't have been easy to see it coming. Someone designed a system for static hyperlinked document presentation... then years later others start shoehorning in broken bits of application-like funct…
To add on to this, the centralization factor of your webapp being a google search away is just one token of the overarching theme of "write once, run anywhere" -- this translates to value for the user. Web apps are quite literally the only thing that can be run on essentially any device that is or can be connected to the internet. Nothing else achieved this because nothing else had an interpreter which was the most essential foundation of browsing the internet.
From a user perspective, being able to instantly download any "app" you need (i.e. visit a website) has been the logical conclusion of high speed mobile data. It's low investment, takes up a miniscule amount of ephemeral storage, and works on anything.
From a developer perspective, you can be assured that your single codebase will run on virtually any device, with minimal adaptations to it. You have enough performance to run mildly resource intensive 3D games, some basic concurrency, and an ecosystem that fixes all of the most important faults in the language (typescript is the biggest one IMO). You also increasingly have APIs that allow you to do everything that you could otherwise do with a proper desktop/mobile app.
Literally the ONLY reason webapps are not the first choice for most companies is because they're not as sticky (obnoxious). Users aren't forced to look at your icon and receive your notifications until they disable them. That's it.
Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs
#90I think one of the uphill battles you're going to have to fight with PWAs is end-user habit. If Joe consumer is looking for a great way to see a weather forecast he's going to look for an app. Jane wants to play podcasts - she's looking for an app. Ezra wants a Jewish calendar - app store. 99 times out of a hundred for the smartphone carrying crowd, the app store has become a replacement for google searches when it c…
Or maybe web apps are going to be good enough and cheap enough to develop that app stores will end up full of stale apps. If everything is on the web, that's where users will get their stuff.
For instance, how often do you try to get a desktop app for something instead of a Google search? Does anyone start by browsing the Mac App Store?
Related: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2009/09/05/desktop-aps-versus-web-a...