Why Progressive Web Apps Are the Future of Mobile Web?
Tags: pwa, javascript, android, ios
Published: 2021-03-01 11:08:50

<h2>Why Progressive Web Apps Are the Future of Mobile Web?</h2>

Progressive web apps are the most powerful, fast, and useful apps. This kind of app provides a seamless experience to the users. <a href="https://theninehertz.com/progressive-web-apps">Progressive web apps development</a> of the mobile web, and in this article, we have explored its potential. A progressive web app acts just like a native app, and you can install the app from a browser. The best thing about this app is that it is available on the phone and can get offline access to the app.                                                                                    

Alex Russell and Frances Berriman coined the term Progressive Web Apps. According to them, it acts as the right vitamins. With the help of Progressive Web Apps, the web application can function like a desktop or a mobile application. The best thing is that the Progressive Web Apps is uniform and seamless that makes it impossible for the user to find out the difference between Progressive Web Apps and a native mobile app.

The Progressive Web Apps is neither a new technology nor a new framework. It deals with some best practices that make it function as a desktop or mobile app. It works similarly on the new iPhone 8 as it would have performed on any other older iPhone generation. However, some features may not work correctly, but it continues to work in the same way as it should.                

<h2>Why Progressive Web Apps have become so essential?</h2>

Before discussing why Progressive Web Apps have become so important, you should understand native and web apps' limitations. The following are some drawbacks of native and web app:

<h2>Internet Speed:</h2> The biggest problem that more than 60% of the world's people are facing is the speed of the Internet. Even today, most people in this world are using second-generation (2G) of the Internet.

<h2>Slow loading of the web page:</h2> The next biggest problem the people face while navigating the native app is the slow web page loading. If the web pages take more than 2 seconds to load, the user loses their patience. Then instead of browsing that web page, the user starts to browse another web page. While browsing native or web apps, 53% of the user face this issue of the slow web page.

<h2>Cannot access offline:</h2> Nowadays, it is effortless to get an app. All you need to do is download the app, either from Google Play Store or App Store. However, the biggest problem is you cannot access the app's content if you do not have the Internet. Even if you have the Internet, it takes too much time to load the Internet's content is slow. 

<h2>High Friction:</h2> As compared to a web app, users install the less native app. A survey observed that users install one native app in a month on an average. That is the reason why the demand and popularity of the native app are very less.

<h2>User engagement:</h2> On comparing the native and mobile web app, it revealed that users use the mobile web app three times more than the native app. Thus, you can easily guess that users do not engage with the native app. If any user installs a few native apps, they spend 80% of their time on that app and hardly install another native app.

<h2>How can Progressive Web Apps solve the limitations of native or web apps?</h2>

Progressive Web Apps can solve the issue of the native or mobile web app. The following are some of the important reasons why users like to use Progressive Web Apps:

Fast: The most prominent reason people prefer to use Progressive Web Apps is that its speed. Every action in Progressive Web Apps happens at a high-speed rate compared to the native or mobile web app. By the time you can start interacting in the native web app, you can download something in Progressive Web Apps. The best thing about this app is that you can cache the data. Hence it is extremely fast since you do not require hitting the network for accessing any vital thing.

<h2>Integrated user experience:</h2> Although Progressive Web Apps is very fast, they exactly behave like the native app. Progressive Web Apps usually exist on the home screen of the user. When the user requests something, they send push notification in the same manner as that of the native app. Thus, Progressive Web Apps can get access to the functionalities in the same way as the native app. Hence the user can get a seamless experience in the Progressive Web Apps.

<h2>Reliable:</h2> In Progressive Web Apps due to the service workers, a picture paints on the users' screen. Thus, even if the network fails, the user gets something on their screen and can thus rely on it.

<h2>Engaging:</h2> Progressive Web Apps keeps its user engaged by sending notifications to them. The Progressive Web Apps can quickly drive the engagement up of the user. When the user remains engaged with the notification, they do not think anything other than the Progressive Web Apps. 
   
<h2>Can access offline:</h2> The best thing about the Progressive Web Apps is that it keeps the cache's content. Hence once the content is saved in the cache, you will have access to the content even if you do not have an Internet connection.

These are some reasons why Progressive Web Apps have nowadays become essential. However, it is not a big task to make the Progressive Web Apps. It just has some minimum requirements, and if you can fulfill those, you can build it quickly. For example, you will require a web app manifest, service workers, icon, and service over HTTPS.<br>
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Web app manifest is a Jason file with the help of which Progressive Web Apps can get the meta-information. This JSON file is just like an icon, and it keeps some vital information about the app. For example, it keeps the record of the app's background, short name, and so on.

<h2>Conclusion</h2>

In Progressive Web Apps, service workers run in the background, and it acts as a proxy between network and app. It intercepts the network request and caches the information. The information that stays in the cache loads data when the user is offline. Service workers of Progressive Web Apps listen to the event and fetch and install the cache's content. That is why in the Progressive Web Apps, you can see content even if you are offline.   

The Progressive Web Apps must be served over a secure network. That is the reason why it requires service over HTTPS and not HTTP. Nowadays, you can quickly get SSL certificates with cloud services such as Cloudfare and LetsEncrypt. It is also a good practice to access the content with a secured Internet connection. With a secured Internet connection, you can earn the trust of the user and can demonstrate reliability. With its demand increasing day by day, it will undoubtedly become the future of the mobile web.