Progressive web apps drive the mobile development of the future

Progressive web apps offer many benefits, leading organizations to take advantage of this trend in mobile app dev. A lack of Apple support stands in the way for some. As performance and user experience become essential to the success of an enterprise mobile app, progressive web apps gain interest — and may eventually become the future standard for mobile development.

Progressive web apps (PWAs) blend the functionalities of traditional web apps with native apps while providing increased speed and performance. Several aspects of the mobile app development landscape today make it primed for this trend to take hold.

“If you’re building a web app today, it should be a PWA,” said Michael Facemire, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research in Cambridge, Mass. “There’s really no reason not to.”

Benefits of PWAs – web apps

PWAs run on the web but can take advantage of native mobile device features, such as appearing on the home screen and sending push notifications. Google supports PWAs for use on Android device browsers, but Apple does not yet support them for its proprietary browser, Safari, on iPhones or iPads. PWAs differ from hybrid web apps in that they are typically not available for download through native app stores and are built using only web technologies.

For PWAs on Android, a service worker API caches data as the user browses to enable offline support. Most PWAs also include an application shell architecture that allows for fast loading times, transport layer security, and a web app manifest file that allows the app to be installed on the home screen, according to Google’s checklist of features.

There may be no difference between a PWA and a native app from the end user’s perspective. That’s beneficial for IT departments that already have an app interface their users or customers are comfortable with.

That was a big benefit for Nexercise, a health and wellness platform that is currently building a PWA for Sworkit, a fitness application. The Sworkit app was first developed for Apple iOS and Android, then the web and Apple TV. Since its web and native apps already shared some JavaScript code, it made sense to develop a PWA, said David Frahm, director of growth at Nexercise in Silver Spring, Md., who oversaw Sworkit’s development.

“Visually,  might look pretty much the same as our web app,” Frahm said. “That would be great, because we have a great app, and we don’t want to change all of that. We get to deliver to users wherever they want us to be, as opposed to being limited to the app store.” Continue reading →