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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?

#131

Post by pedalpete »

brylie wrote: post #2

Start with the customer needs rather than the technology. Do you have some specific product ideas? Those ideas would help steer technology decisions, particularly during the initial prototyping phase.

This is exactly what I was going to say, and PWA is like you're trying to build for 2 cycles ago.

When you've got the problem you want to work on, is a PWA the best method of use/distribution/discovery?

Perhaps a mobile app is the best method, or a hardware device.

When you're thinking about what you want to build, don't forget about distribution. There is a saying that 1st time founders focus on product, 2nd time founders focus on distribution.

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

#132

Post by streptomycin »

DylanSp wrote: post #125
throwaway9143 wrote: post #3

I'll give you a hard-earned tip: expect to fight Apple every step of the way. They will randomly erase all local data (cookies, localstorage, push subscription tokens, etc) in your PWA without warning. They say they don't do this, but I have the receipts. They want PWAs to suffer, and you will go insane trying to make workarounds on iPhone.

Does Safari on iOS support the File System API, specifically the origin private file system? Can you use that to reliably persist data into a file/SQLite database?

No, that also gets deleted sometimes.

But on the plus side, random deletions also happen on Android!

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

#133

Post by streptomycin »

throwaway9143 wrote: post #3

I'll give you a hard-earned tip: expect to fight Apple every step of the way. They will randomly erase all local data (cookies, localstorage, push subscription tokens, etc) in your PWA without warning. They say they don't do this, but I have the receipts. They want PWAs to suffer, and you will go insane trying to make workarounds on iPhone.

Random data loss happens on Android quite a bit too. Source: I have a PWA with a lot of users, and my #1 complaint is data being lost on both Android and iOS.

This is true even if you use Google's own tool to wrap your PWA and put it in the Play Store, and even if you use the so-called "persistent storage API" to have users request their data not be deleted - still get random data loss, and it makes it very hard to maintain a 4+ star rating when there are a bunch of 1 star reviews about users losing all their data.

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

#134

Post by iuvcaw »

streptomycin wrote: post #133
throwaway9143 wrote: post #3

I'll give you a hard-earned tip: expect to fight Apple every step of the way. They will randomly erase all local data (cookies, localstorage, push subscription tokens, etc) in your PWA without warning. They say they don't do this, but I have the receipts. They want PWAs to suffer, and you will go insane trying to make workarounds on iPhone.

Random data loss happens on Android quite a bit too. Source: I have a PWA with a lot of users, and my #1 complaint is data being lost on both Android and iOS. This is true even if you use Google's own tool to wrap your PWA and put it in the Play Store, and even if you use the so-called "persistent storage API" to have users request their data not be deleted - still get random data loss, and it makes it very hard to m…

Genuine question - not defending Apple/google - does your pwa not use a dedicated server / db for user’s data? And then localstorage just as a cache if needed?

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

#135

Post by nailer »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #97
iudqnolq wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The user doesn't care about the delivery tech. They care about the installation and usage experience. They want to go search the app store, click the button, and get an icon on their homescreen.

How is requiring the user to open a completely different application a better "user experience" than installing it from the web page they're already on? Yes, I know that installing a PWA is confusing (especially on Apple's systems), but there no reason it has to be that way. PWA (if it were implemented properly): "Click here to install app". Click. Confirmation dialog. App is installed. App opens in the same window .…

> How is requiring the user to open a completely different application a better "user experience" than installing it from the web page they're already on?

Because it is strange and different. If Web apps were standard going to the iOS App Store would be weird. It’s not so PWAs are weird. Just give them an app, don’t make them work to install it.

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

#136

Post by furyofantares »

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…

I'm curious how many unique users you get daily/weekly/monthly?

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

#137

Post by streptomycin »

iuvcaw wrote: post #134
streptomycin wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Random data loss happens on Android quite a bit too. Source: I have a PWA with a lot of users, and my #1 complaint is data being lost on both Android and iOS. This is true even if you use Google's own tool to wrap your PWA and put it in the Play Store, and even if you use the so-called "persistent storage API" to have users request their data not be deleted - still get random data loss, and it makes it very hard to m…

Genuine question - not defending Apple/google - does your pwa not use a dedicated server / db for user’s data? And then localstorage just as a cache if needed?

It doesn't... started as a hobby project in 2012, wanted to see if it was possible to make an app that stored a lot of client-side data in IndexedDB. Now, my app is successful so I don't really want to move to another platform, but also it creates too much data to easily and cheaply sync to a server. So I'm in a weird situation. https://basketball-gm.com/ if you're curious.

I realize I'm a bit of an edge case. But also, ideally we could make PWAs that operate with similar data guarantees as native apps. That's kind of the idea of PWAs, that web apps should be able to mostly be the equivalent of native apps.

And it almost works, except for the data loss issue. Kind of sad. Cause there are so many other advantages of a PWA... like being able to target all platforms with one PWA is incredible. Having no gatekeepers to "approve" my app updates is incredible. But the cost is sometimes users lose all their data :)

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

#138

Post by DylanSp »

streptomycin wrote: post #132
DylanSp wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does Safari on iOS support the File System API, specifically the origin private file system? Can you use that to reliably persist data into a file/SQLite database?

No, that also gets deleted sometimes. But on the plus side, random deletions also happen on Android!

That's unfortunate. Good to know, though.

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

#139

Post by casper14 »

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…

Love it, super smooth! Played a quick game

https://freesolitaire.win/turn-one#25307

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

#140

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway9143 wrote: post #35
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…

"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…

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