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Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs

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Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs

#131

Post by ryanwaggoner »

TomMarius wrote: post #127
illuminati1911 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh they actually do. The thing is that people already have all the apps what they need, so there is no regular need to download other apps. But when such need arrives though, they head to the appstore. The reality in developing countries is actually completely opposite. People in those countries love apps and use WiFi etc. to downlod them in coffee shops/schools/offices... so they can keep using the service only by d…

You know that one of the major features PWAs offer is creating an app icon so you can launch it just like an app in a headless browser and use it offline, right?

I don't think that's what headless browser means...

Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs

#132

Post by userpass »

TomMarius wrote: post #127
illuminati1911 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh they actually do. The thing is that people already have all the apps what they need, so there is no regular need to download other apps. But when such need arrives though, they head to the appstore. The reality in developing countries is actually completely opposite. People in those countries love apps and use WiFi etc. to downlod them in coffee shops/schools/offices... so they can keep using the service only by d…

You know that one of the major features PWAs offer is creating an app icon so you can launch it just like an app in a headless browser and use it offline, right?

It's surprising to me that everyone who is against PWAs doesn't even know what a PWA is.

Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs

#133

Post by userpass »

david-cako wrote: post #101
otakucode wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well there's also some other factors I would think... as soon as you want that fancy web app of yours to convert a 10GB video file you're going to be sad. Or if you want to have control of your data. Or if you don't want someone ELSE to have control of your data. Or if you don't want them listening to everything you say, profiling everything you do, and lacing everything with advertising... Much is done remotely whic…

>There's no reason a similar system couldn't be built to deliver platform-native applications I'm very into the idea of HTML/CSS/JS on the desktop (and by extension, things like react native), even if simply as a frontend to a heavier duty application running on localhost. I feel like the OSs should be shipping runtimes for it instead of having insane 120MB hello world electron apps. Web apps also don't necessarily m…

You can do that already. It's windows only though.

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/jj891058.aspx

Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs

#134

Post by troelsSteegin »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #26
scaryclam wrote: post #16

Earlier 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

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,…

the app is in leveraging the rider's actual experience ... each time the rider rides the bus, she records the time of arrival - eg takes a photo of the bus - and builds a record of actual arrival times. the app makes predictions about when the bus will come.

Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs

#135

Post by hilti »

osrec wrote: post #59

This is something I feel quite strongly about, and I too favour PWAs. I think native apps have their place for now, as a few key APIs are not fully exposed via browsers yet, but the API landscape continues to improve. Apple has even started dev on service workers for Safari, and their IndexedDB implementation is not as buggy as it used to be. If I'm honest, apps never really made sense to me; they seem to be part of…

This is a really beautiful designed PWA - congratulations! Do you mind sharing some tech details (Framework used, Charts)

Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs

#137

Post by osrec »

hilti wrote: post #135
osrec wrote: post #59

This is something I feel quite strongly about, and I too favour PWAs. I think native apps have their place for now, as a few key APIs are not fully exposed via browsers yet, but the API landscape continues to improve. Apple has even started dev on service workers for Safari, and their IndexedDB implementation is not as buggy as it used to be. If I'm honest, apps never really made sense to me; they seem to be part of…

This is a really beautiful designed PWA - congratulations! Do you mind sharing some tech details (Framework used, Charts)

I pretty much rolled my own! Everything from the view rendering to the charts were done in house, as I wanted to keep it lightweight. If I end up making a bit of money on this, I will definitely open source the charts and view rendering engines :)

Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs

#138

Post by drewda »

scaryclam wrote: post #68
CamelCaseName wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

I think you may misunderstand. The bus company provides live information. This is not a schedule, so cannot be downloaded ahead of time.

Many public transit agencies provide both static and real-time data.

- static data often is sharing using the "GTFS" specification, which includes stop locations, route geometries, scheduled trips, etc. See http://gtfs.org/

- real-time data is shared using a variety of specifications, and typically includes vehicle locations, service alerts, and other notifications from the agency

The static kind of data can certainly be cached for local use. Try browsing and downloading some from the Transitland open transit data platform and its API: https://transit.land

Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs

#139

Post by osrec »

badsectoracula wrote: post #114
osrec wrote: post #59

This is something I feel quite strongly about, and I too favour PWAs. I think native apps have their place for now, as a few key APIs are not fully exposed via browsers yet, but the API landscape continues to improve. Apple has even started dev on service workers for Safari, and their IndexedDB implementation is not as buggy as it used to be. If I'm honest, apps never really made sense to me; they seem to be part of…

> ... seems to have taken a step backward with mobile apps, and replaced with an endless need for vendor lock in. It's great for business, but as a user, it feels really restrictive. As a developer, it's not great either. But isn't using a web app that stores its data to a remote server and handles upgrades a method of vendor (in this case developer) lock in? As a user you are 100% reliant on the developer, both for…

I don't disagree with what you're saying, but the issue I have is with the monopolistic aspect of an app store... Basically, it's one or two monolithic companies that control everything and determine the rules because they make the base operating systems. With regards to updates etc, I think similar issues apply to native apps - e.g. devs can change the backend, which can break older front ends. I'm sure you can eventually have the concept of a versioned web app as well, much like versioned APIs, and users can decide if they wish to upgrade.

Re: Betting on the Web – Why I Build PWAs

#140

Post by WorldMaker »

celeritascelery wrote: post #74
criddell wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't have to change users, you have to get Google and Apple to change. There's no technical reason they couldn't include web apps in their app stores. In the article the author speculates that both Google and Apple are working on this. I could see Google embracing web apps, but I'd be surprised if Apple does.

I would be seriously surprised if any smartphone company added PWA's to their app stores. Web apps inherently can't take advantage of many platform/model specific features. Even thing like UI elements, fonts, gestures etc. OS manufacturers want their feature sets used because it adds value to their ecosystem. As a consumer of smartphone apps, I tend to agree with them.

Microsoft announced at BUILD this year that PWAs would be ingested by the Bing crawler directly into the Windows Store, with tools for sites to opt out or further control their listings (including monetizing them).

The Windows Store has supported server-hosted web apps [1] for some time now, and provides a large subsection of the platform-specific libraries to hosted web apps. Hosted Web Apps are based on earlier drafts of PWA standards, but the expectation from BUILD and other Microsoft talks is that they will bring platform-specific libraries along for the ride as the converge to more recent PWA standards.

[1] https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/bridges/hosted...

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