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Progressive Web Apps – Present, Future, or a Lost Opportunity?

13 points by Cadienvan ↗ HN
I've been developing Progressive Web Apps in late 2017 as a total pioneer. Even Google didn't have a complete idea about them and articles and tutorials were coming to their platform and leaving the day after. After two years, we all use (or at least, know) them. Anyway, iOS still has many limitations over what you can or can not do in your PWA. Do you see it as a barrier to start using it, or have you started developing them and feel like they are the present / future?

15 comments

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muzani
The big question I've always had about PWA is... who uses them? It seems like an approach everyone considers when talking about making an app. But non-techie user adoption seems close to 0.
mark_l_watson
I am not sure if I am talking about the same thing, but I always favor using web apps over native apps. I could be wrong, but I feel like I have more control over my privacy and over my devices using web apps. Aren’t almost all modern web apps progressive, intelligently loading assets in the background?
phillipseamore
[Meant for OP] PWA usage is probably close to zero on iOS. However on Android you can submit your PWA and have it available in Google Play, and the user is none the wiser that it's just a packaged PWA.
JohnFen
> I feel like I have more control over my privacy and over my devices using web apps

Interesting. I feel the exact opposite -- I have more control over native apps. It's harder to firewall off web apps and control if/when they get updated, for instance.

ericras
Not everything is made for a general public consumer base. PWA might be a good idea for an internal-facing staff application when a director says they want an app.
jiofih
The reason adoption is 0 is because they cannot be distributed through app stores.
kitsunesoba
I’ve tried using them a few times (on Android even, where they’re supposed to be better supported) and I almost always end up reaching for a real app instead. I don’t know if it’s because the bar to entry is lower or what but PWAs very frequently feel janky and cheap, with bits of latency, momentary drawing/layout glitches, etc.
JohnFen
As a user, I have zero interest in PWAs. They bring risk and a degraded user experience, in exchange for no actual benefit.

As a dev, I also have zero interest in them, but solely because I try hard not to work on projects that I am not willing to use myself.

I understand the appeal of PWAs for software producers, but I don't see how they bring any substantial benefit to users.

lucasverra
google maps (web) is a PWA
muzani
Sure, but who uses the PWA version over the native app?
justanothersys
I’ve been following them since Google began pushing them too, but it feels pretty dead in the water without iOS stepping up to the plate. Future... yes, maybe 10 years?
nojvek
Not sure about PWAs but I love the new apis it brings. Especially fetch caches api and service workers. Makes building an offline app very possible.
gitgud
It was a good theory. Get users to install a lightweight version of the web-app via "Add to Home Screen". This removes a huge amount of friction that App Stores have...

However in practice it was extremely unpopular as majority of users don't want to install a PWA app, without looking at the app's rating and reviews on some kind of app store.

In my experience PWA's have just become an annoying popup that annoying sites use to plant themselves on your device...

duxup
I loved the idea but last I saw installing from Chrome still made them feel like second class citizens...
vijoh
IMO, they are the future. Slowly everyone will support them.