Progressive Web Apps (PWA)
Progressive web apps are no doubt the in-thing in today’s mobile-first business world. This new app has been piped to elicit a paradigm shift in the mobile world.
Even businesses that have invested technological resources in developing local mobile apps are prospecting what it could look like when you have the PWA. These businesses know that the uniqueness of the Power web apps could outshine the longevity of their native apps.
Companies that are yet to devote their resources in a mobile app are now considering the option of making PWA their first resort because they look more economical and relatively easier than the task of developing an entirely new app experience. To put succinctly, all businesses know that the PWA comes with the comparative advantage of a superior web-based app experience that would outshine the features of any native app.
Progressive Web App
The platform-locked design and difficulty to access are some of the restrictions symptomatic of native apps. The PWA which was introduced by Google in 2015 has a unique level of functionality beyond these restrictions.
The distinctive features, therefore, prompted the term progressive web apps. PWA delivers a rare experience incorporating the excellent features found in native apps coupled with the simplicity and unrestricted access to the web.
It is a web-based, app experience. In other words, PWA acts just like a native app but has the merit of being accessible through a mobile web browser.
Thus, the features and functionality are maintained while more users can still easily be connected to the app. By so doing, users are bound to experience functionality better than what is obtained in native apps.
Progressive Web Apps Futuristic Suitability
PWAs tend to outshine mobile apps in the nearest future. It is being suggested that mobile-app are most likely to deliver web-based experiences in the nearest future. Some might remain skeptical of this position going by the number of native apps that mobile users subscribe to on their phones without the web.
PWAs come with novel opportunities that are not peculiar to native apps. Firstly, most mobile phone users are not acquainted with the existence of an app until they access other apps such as the App Store or Google Play. The stressful experience of downloading the app and installing it could be discouraging. Some phone users would not even bother searching for apps at all.
Progressive web apps do not require such a tedious process just to gain access. Users can be connected to app experience via a URL link which makes it easy to share with others.
Phone users would surely savor the experience of merely getting connected to an app through a link.
Accessibility could not have been much easier. Thus, apps could become even more popular than social media platforms when users know that all they require is just to copy and then paste on their friends’ wall. The ability to share progressive web apps will make native apps look outdated and obsolete in no time.
Hybrid Approach
If one is to look at the debate between PWAs and native apps from another facet, it might be rational to conclude that the presence of both types of the app will simply offer a diversity of technological options.
It means mobile companies willing to carve a niche for in their market could offer both the web-based and native versions of the same app.
Companies that have invested in the development of native apps might explore this option in order not to see their investment going down the drain due to a shift in the paradigm.
This hybrid approach flourishes where the two options deviate. Brands can leverage on offering a more comprehensive and all-encompassing experience when they have both versions in their kitty.
PWAs require a lot of power and therefore have a drawback bothering on the lack of performance. Native apps, however, do not have such drawbacks since they do not rely on performance-based features. The hybrid approach will fill the gap left by both versions and deliver an all-around app experience to users.
Thus, companies adopting this hybrid approach could leverage on the accessibility of their power web apps and gain more popularity in the process.
Subscribers can then further urge to obtaining the full native app and enjoy the more comprehensive features. From another shrewd business perspective, PWAs can be exploited for one-time experiences that will create more of a passing craze. For instance, a well-known brand attempting to diversify in its production could release a PWA to aid the market transition and consumer awareness with low marketing overheads being expended.
The native apps will then still retain the basic performance-oriented experiences of the new product.
Why PWAs Might Still Define the Future
App fatigue is one of the maladies affecting mobile users. There seems to be a growing apathy among consumers with many among them not even taking time to check for the latest apps let alone download them.
App stores have tried checking this fatigue by getting rid of old apps that are not being updated or downloaded. There is however still almost 1.5 million apps that are yet to be downloaded.
Most phone users have become frugal with the availability of space on their phone. Many mobile users often feel that they have more than enough apps on their phone which chunk data storage and affects the speed and performance of the phone itself.
PWAs are instantaneous inaccessibility. It does not chunk space like the native apps and therefore has the money to combat app fatigue of mobile phone users.
Users also have the choice of merely saving the PWA’s link if it would not constitute even the most infinitesimal burden. And even if it does, accessing the experience comes by merely entering the URL into a mobile browser.
The flexibility is unique. With Google being the brain behind it, PWA’s are most likely to dictate the tempo in the nearest future.
