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Ask HN: Who has had a successful PWA product?

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Re: Ask HN: Who has had a successful PWA product?

#41

Post by throwaway9143 »

lynx23 wrote: post #39
throwaway9143 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"customer don't care what language/framework you are using" is a strange way to support a claim they do care about having a native app over a PWA. The first statement highlights that the user just wants something that works as advertised, and doesn't care about the framework. But the second statement highlights that, despite their disinterest in the technology, they care deeply about the app's delivery tech (PWAs vs…

I have a different take. As a person reliant on accessibility, PWAs almost always deliver a worse experience for me. So after a while, I learnt to prefer native apps, simply because PWAs typically deliver a worse UX for me.

That's interesting. In what way is a PWA worse than a website wrt accessibility? I understand that you are comparing PWAs to native apps, but presumably you have a fine time with normal websites? PWAs shouldn't be any different.

Re: Ask HN: Who has had a successful PWA product?

#42

Post by palsecam »

raybb wrote: post #40
palsecam wrote: post #24

https://FreeSolitaire.win is a successful PWA of mine. It’s a Klondike Solitaire game. It used to bring ~$500/mo of advertising revenue, but that’s significantly down these days: I refuse to have a cookie/consent banner, so I refuse customized ads (in the UE, in some US states now, &c.) Players do add it to homescreen. There is a non-intrusive button prompting them to do so, at the end of a game. People like to be ab…

What ad network are you using?

AdSense.

Re: Ask HN: Who has had a successful PWA product?

#43

Post by palsecam »

nefarious_ends wrote: post #31
palsecam wrote: post #24

https://FreeSolitaire.win is a successful PWA of mine. It’s a Klondike Solitaire game. It used to bring ~$500/mo of advertising revenue, but that’s significantly down these days: I refuse to have a cookie/consent banner, so I refuse customized ads (in the UE, in some US states now, &c.) Players do add it to homescreen. There is a non-intrusive button prompting them to do so, at the end of a game. People like to be ab…

Hey great app! I really like the “undo until unstuck” feature, I haven’t seen that before. Is there an algorithm for that or did you come up with something yourself?

Thanks!

The algorithm is described here: https://FreeSolitaire.win/strategy I came up with it by myself.

“The strategy presented here is the basis of the computer algorithm of FreeSolitaire.win, which is used to select finishable deals, offer hints, and detect dead-ends. You also see it surface when you are told that The computer could do it in N moves at the end of a game.

This strategy/algorithm is quite simple. It does not require to “count cards”, i.e. keep track of which cards were seen in the stock. It doesn’t require to make guesses on where such or such face-down card must be located. And the procedure is the same all along the game; there is no special treatement of the opening or ending. It’s stateless, a programmer would say. […]”

Re: Ask HN: Who has had a successful PWA product?

#44

Post by JimDabell »

joshstrange wrote: post #26

Whenever this argument comes up it reminds me of how detached from reality HN is on this subject. Customers want apps. Companies want apps. No one except us nerds want PWAs. We can talk about how PWAs are second class citizens and how unfair that is or we can remember that end-users _do not care_ about the underlying technology. We constantly make this mistake, customer don’t care what language you are using, they do…

> Customers want apps. Companies want apps. No one except us nerds want PWAs.

I used to work on a platform that offered native iOS apps, native Android apps, and PWA / web apps for all our customers. When users were given the choice, around two thirds opted for the native iOS app, about a quarter opted for the native Android app, and about 10% opted for the PWA / web app. That’s including desktop users, not just mobile.

Users want native apps.

Re: Ask HN: Who has had a successful PWA product?

#45

Post by palsecam »

nefarious_ends wrote: post #27
jb1991 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know much about these kinds of apps, but when I visit your game page, I don’t see any way to actually add it to the homepage on my iPhone. Is this something that iOS doesn’t allow, or is there another way to do it? The game looks pretty cool though :)

In Safari hit the share button then scroll down and hit Add to Home Screen.

This.

Safari (and Firefox) does not have https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/BeforeInsta... So you can’t have a custom button/way to prompt players to install.

However, they can install a PWA manually, by themselves; there is the option somewhere in their browser menu.

Re: Ask HN: Who has had a successful PWA product?

#46

Post by cpcat »

vjeux wrote: post #12

excalidraw.com is a PWA, but not unsure how helpful it’s going to be as comparison. As mentioned in the comments, success is likely more due to the usefulness of the app rather than the tech used. vjeuxx@gmail.com if you wanna chat.

Unrelated, I'm interested in the tech behind it to build my own PWA. May I ask what tech stack you use. Sorry if it's obvious I'm just getting started

Re: Ask HN: Who has had a successful PWA product?

#47

Post by LuisAPI »

e38383 wrote: post #19

I‘m using https://thelounge.chat/ as PWA on all my devices and it works very good. Maybe you can contact them or look around the source yourself.

Speaking of messaging apps, there's also https://app.revolt.chat/ designed to target a sort-of different userbase.

Been using them as a PWA for a very long time.

Re: Ask HN: Who has had a successful PWA product?

#49

Post by [deleted] »

carlonicora wrote: post #10
1oooqooq wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why would you not put a wrapped pwa in the app store? isn't it a small racketeering/marketing price for the promissed discoverability?

If you publish the app in the App Store you will have to give Apple a chunk of you revenue as well, not just the yearly fee

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Who has had a successful PWA product?

#50

Post by jb1991 »

palsecam wrote: post #45
nefarious_ends wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Safari hit the share button then scroll down and hit Add to Home Screen.

This. Safari (and Firefox) does not have https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/BeforeInsta... So you can’t have a custom button/way to prompt players to install. However, they can install a PWA manually, by themselves; there is the option somewhere in their browser menu.

That’s interesting, thanks. I just did it successfully, I don’t think I’ve ever installed an app like this before. So I guess when I click it it’s just opening a browser window with no actual browser controls and then loading the site?
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