Hero Interview Series — Getting to know Progressive Web App with Warat Wongmaneekit
This interview is conducted by Bok Thye Yeow, Google Developer Relations Program Manager with Warat Wongmaneekit , Zocial Lead Web Developer, on his developer experience developing ShopTidlom, a Progressive Web App (PWA) mobile application.
What exactly are Progressive Web Apps?
Progressive Web Applications take advantage of new technologies to bring the best of mobile sites and native applications to users. They’re reliable, fast, and engaging. Check out the PWA showcase for real-life case studies to know more.
(Fill up this short form if you want to know more about PWA and would like to be invited to future PWA events/workshops)
Introducing ShopTidlom
Bok: Nice to meet you, please tell us more about yourself.
: Hi, My name is Warat Wongmaneekit, also known as Thang. I’m an active web developer advocate in the WaratGoogle Developer Group (GDG) Thailand community. I’m also the lead developer of THOTH ZOCIAL
Bok: I heard you recently created a PWA app, tell us more about what your app does and why you choose to developed it with PWA?
Warat: The application is called ShopTidlom. It aggregates Instagram posting from various online stores, categorized them and make them searchable. I am a web developer and although I generally developed for the web, I am interested to develop mobile apps too. PWA allows me to reuse my existing web development skills to create a web app that behaves somesort like a native mobile app.
Bok: What features of PWA did you implement in ShopTidlom ?
Warat: I experimented with features like “Service Worker”, “Add to Home Screen” and “Web App Install Banner” I used Service Worker to cache content so the app can still work offline in conjuction with an App Shell. App Banner is interesting because after launching the app for numerous times, users will be presented an option to add my app to the home screen. I think that’s the sweetspot for a PWA app, to be added to the home screen like a native app.
Bok: Tell us more about the development process, what tools, programming language did you use etc.
Warat: I initially built the native Android app version of Shoptidlom using the Ionic Framework with Angular JS. Since the codebase is already in Web programming languages, all I have to do is to strip out Ionic-specific code, follow the steps highlighted in the PWA documentation , which is very easy to do.
Bok: Were there any major challenges during the development process
Warat: I wouldn’t call it a major challenge, but since my app was initially an Ionic app, I have to test it thoroughly after porting it to PWA to make sure I removed all Ionic related function. Angular JS, being a Javascript framework, on the other hand, works fine with very slight code modification. I’ve heard that the new version of Angular JS, Angular JS 2 has some really nitty features to build Progressive Web Apps. And now, with Ionic annoucing support for PWA out of the box, things are just going to be easier!
(Check out Angular 2 and Progressive Web Apps — Google I/O 2016 and Ionic Blogpost on What are Progressive Web Apps)
Bok: What do you think are the benefits of a PWA app?
Warat: For my case, the main benefit will be user accessibility since there’s no installation needed. All users have to do is to add the web app to the home screen directly from the mobile browser and they’ve effectively “installed” the app. It’s also easier to pass along a link instead of having to ask users to look up my app in the store hence making app discovery really easy.
(Check out the Progressive Web App Case Studies)
Check out Warat’s Medium blog where he regularly blogs on all things web.
Bok: Are there any missing features you would wish PWA should have?
Warat: It will be interesting to see if PWA will eventually allow developers to access hardware / phone features. This will definitely empower web developers to develop more “advanced” mobile apps. An interesting session from IO2016, The Physical Web touched on this topic and showcase the potential of PWA apps working hand in hand with hardware for to provide a wholesome user experience.
(Check out The Physical Web video from Google I/O 2016)
Bok: Thank you for sharing your development experiencing with PWA app.
Warat: Thank you Bok.
Originally published at http://gdg.in.th on June 1, 2016.
