Progressive Web Applications PWA development

Progressive Web Applications (PWA) began to spread in 2018, and applications of this class are supported by all major browsers, but the prevalence of PWA technologies, despite their obvious advantages, is still very low. Google experts write very informative and competently about PWA, that progressive web applications are an advanced technology that can and should be used by developers of any websites and applications right now.

The hot heart of PWA

To begin with, it is worth noting that now it is impossible to clearly say whether this is a PWA site or not, since today there are hybrid projects that partially use this technology. It can also be a simple site that has added a web application manifest that creates an icon for the site on the home screen of a mobile phone. And only users can feel the main difference - it's speed and say that it's amazingly fast and convenient. That's because somewhere inside it beats the hot heart of PWA.

PWA architecture

PWA is a web application built using specific technologies to achieve specific results:

• Service worker
• We App manifest
• HTTPS
• App shell
• Push notifications

Quality targets:

1. Reliablethe application is loaded and displayed immediately, regardless of the status and quality of the network connection.
2. Fastcommunication over the network is fast, UI is smooth and responsive.
3. Engagingmakes the experience of working with the application comfortable and enjoyable for the user, encouraging him to want to experience it again and again.

The website or application must be fast to load, work on a weak connection, not “lag”, work offline if necessary. From Google's point of view, this is what separates the look and feel of websites from native apps now.

PWA and native APPs

The fact that PWAs are similar in appearance to native applications is rather a cosmetic decision (although it is important for the user from a psychological point of view). But the fact that they are similar internally (all the main resources of the application can be stored on the client, only changing content will be transmitted over the network) is a huge achievement.

One might even call it a hidden revolution. In fact, the browser is used as a kind of virtual machine that stores and launches the PWA application in itself. Just like Android is a virtual machine for android apps, the browser becomes a virtual machine for PWA. Just as a native application accesses its resources through the file system, PWA also accesses its resources - albeit via HTTP(S), but stored locally.
The main thing is that all this works the same on all major browsers and on all major platforms.

There are mobile apps that need to be native. As a rule, these are games that need performance, access to system resources, etc. However, most business applications in their functionality are fully implemented as PWAs.

Apple's bureaucratic barrier has now been broken. And Google broke it. Given that this particular company is the flagship of Internet technologies, such an entry into iOS territory is most likely well thought out and calculated. It remains to wait for the PWA boom.

We use our own unique developments in the field of PWA, which demonstrate amazing speed and reliability.