What Can Be An Alternative To Mobile Apps?

Collabe
Collabe
Jul 20, 2017 · 2 min read

You must have heard about the future of all mankind, nah we are not talking about future future, but future of mobile apps. Now you got it, Progressive Web Apps. They wouldn’t bring balance or peace to the world, but what they will do is push the mobile web forward helping web developers reach users beyond the keeps of the app stores.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? But the question here is can they be an alternative to mobile apps?

“A Progressive Web App uses modern web capabilities to deliver an app-like user experience.”

Native apps do varied things like sending push notification, work offline, looks and work like an app while browser mobile web apps accessed in a mobile browser do no such things. With new web APIs, design concept and buzzwords, Progressive Web Apps fixes the problem.

It’s mostly the browser mobile apps that need a little fix as the hybrid ones run inhibited in the native app environment but again, have you tried pulling out the web content from a hybrid app and load it in a mobile browser? The app is restricted by the browser features.

So it’s Progressive Web Apps that bring the features from native apps to a mobile browser experience.

By using standards-based technologies, they run in a secure container accessible to anyone on the web. Here are some of the core principles of Progressive Web Apps:

Service Workers

Incredibly powerful yet equally confusing technology, they power the offline functionality, push notifications, background content updating, content caching and a lot more. The worker script is independent of the app working behind the scene and runs in response to defined events.

App Shell

The initial load of a mobile web app provides a basic shell of an app UI in this simple design concept. Also, the app content is loaded after. As the app and content loads separately it improves the usability of the app and also the user’s perception of the performance.

Installability and App Manifest

Installing web apps to home screen was a second-rate experience but now it’s changing. Currently pinning a mobile website to their home screen is there and although the experience isn’t that fluid, things are changing for better with Progressive Web Apps.

New web APIs; design pattern; marketing, Progressive Web Apps are the future of mobile apps as they are all set to change the user experience as no more interstitial and no more building separate native and mobile web apps.

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