Progressive Web Apps in 2024

Are Progressive Web Apps still relevant?

💬 Topics:
- What is a PWA;
- Steps to convert a Web App into a PWA;
- Working with Service Workers;
- PWA Example;
- List of PWA features

[Gornius]

I'm working for startup and built PWA, which was perfect fit for our use case - easy to install, fast to update, shared codebase with desktop, could be run offline and could deliver Push notifications. But then Apple decided to be Apple and we basically lost full iOS marketshare in EU with that (we're based in Poland, and EU is our main if not only market).

EDIT: So apparently it works if your default browser is Safari, but when Apple was required to allow other browsers on iOS, they stated it is impossible to have PWAs working, and they will stop working in EU.

[guandor]

You left out the two most important problems with PWAs... distribution and Apple.

[jamesgphillips]

Hot take: as developers we should advocate for moving to pwas and wasm for all app development. The dom is by far the best way to build user interfaces, the web becomes the platform to distribute apps and we cut out the corporate fat of platform app stores entirely

[AngularUniversity]

PWAs never took off due to Apple delaying support years, and then only giving partial support, creating all sorts of problems. The installation user experience of installation was awful last time I checked.

[slmille]

In theory PWAs let you create cheap cross platform apps, but in practice companies still end up needing iOS and Android native versions as well.

[prathamshenoy]

even if i am not lazy enough to build native mobile apps, i would want to skip the app store fees

[CyberTechBits]

Building PWAs is sooo much better! Great video!

[dennisadamczyk]

Notice: To make an PWA installable, a service worker is required in a lot of browsers.

[BrunoMussoi]

I don't understand those increases in % after moving to pwa.... From the final user point of view, there is no difference between native and pwa, they would not even know it changed, so why their behavior would change along the code change? Are they really implying that without the move to pwa they would not had increased those % amounts? How, why?

[gageracer]

One thing I was not able to achieve is serverless PWA. Specifically for to send notifications to user without a server. I want to set reminders and alerts just from the client side and trigger a push notification when app is not up but it seems like you can only push the notifications from a server to the service worker.

[ElectricalEngineeringApp]

I have also made a PWA of my android app, better option actually is PWA

[nomadshiba]

there's a kysely adapter plugin, that let's you use indexeddb as sqlite database.

you can also build a REST api on your sw.
acting like a remote server. you can use it like a replica or proxy where you cache data.
you can also have global states and all of the app logic on the sw and use the browser side as a viewer only. you can wrap sw states with a signal interface, so it's easy to handle.

you can also use it with htmx if you want to, but instead of htmx directly talking with your remote server asking for it to render whole ui. it's asking it to the sw.

[MaximeMoreillon]

Are PWAs equally supported on all modern browsers ? I remember having issues with Safari a while ago

[patocarrasco]

PWA are amazing. I just started learning it like 2 days ago and your video shows out! Very useful. The only thing that I can't find is how I can change the app version. It keeps showing `App version: 1`. 😓

[TheGarageboyz]

PWAs that can run in the background is a must

[andrespereira]

Don't you have issues installing a PWA in Android mobiles? Almost every phone has only one navigator (mostly Chrome) that can install a PWA and the others install a fake one (web shortcut without the pwa features but in display standalone...)

The android emulator cannot install a PWA with Chrome...

It's only me?

[huulbaek]

Are you talking about Twitter Lite? And isn't that a very old story? And isn't native still a way better experience when we talk about mobile apps?

[jakeave]

The google cdn is huge. I just needed to cache a couple files for a 100kb game, so I just used the native events.

[emerson-sheaapril]

I really like the clean ways you make your videos, what are you using?

[GrubyCh]

The problem is Apple not wanting to make web tech too good.