Are you familiar with progressive web apps or PWAs? In this article, James Grills gives us an overview of the benefits of using PWAs and discusses the future of web and mobile app development with progressive web apps.

Have you ever imagined as to how much dependent we are on technology these days? Think about mobile apps and you certainly wouldn’t find it any difficult to comprehend the kind of dependence we have on technology. In fact, this dependence has proved to be pretty much productive for us over the years no matter what field of life we belong to. Apps have become an integral part of our lives and, literally, everyone has certain important apps that one can’t afford to live without.

There’s a new revolution on its way with a view to creating a massive transformation in the outlook towards web and mobile app development which is certainly going to be a lot more advanced. Progressive Web Apps or PWAs is anticipated to bring about a huge difference by taking the traditional web to an unimaginably new level of innovation in terms of powerful functionalities and user experience.

This is going to be a lot more powerful and engaging than the native mobile apps.

Understanding progressive web apps

Progressive Web App isn’t an entirely new thing. In fact, it’s an initiative to get a website function more like a native mobile app so that every user can have the same experience irrespective of their device platforms. That way, users can be largely relieved from app store browsing and installation. Some of the best examples of progressive web applications are Flipkart Lite, AliExpress, The Washington Post, OLX, Trivago, Book My Show and more. From the technical standpoint, you can visualize a progressive web app as just another tab in your browser with a quick access and incredibly smooth functionality just as in mobile apps. Most importantly, it’s going to work offline as well.

How does that feel like? Aren’t you excited to know more?

Hybrid apps vs progressive web apps

A progressive web app works equally well on all devices irrespective of their operating systems. However, progressive web apps are often confused with hybrid mobile apps but as a matter of fact, they are completely different from each other. While hybrid apps can be downloaded from the app store in the form of executable files and installed on phones, progressive web apps aren’t even available on any app store. progressive web apps are only available as a tab in the browser that can conveniently be saved as a shortcut to one’s home screen too for quick access.

Some important progressive web applications stats

According to one of the Google’s own case studies on PWAs, these apps have brought about a substantial growth of 68% in the mobile traffic because of its ultra-fast page loading speed along with a much-reduced storage requirement. Also, there has been a brilliant increase of 52% in conversions because of these applications. Engagement has increased by 137% and page views increased by 133.67%. Most importantly, the bounce rate has declined by 42.86% with the use of these applications.

Advantages of progressive web apps

Here are some of the important points that would help you understand the advantages of progressive web apps better:

Responsive

Progressive web apps work equally well on all browsers and all devices regardless of the screen size. From the standpoint of the users, they can use these apps smoothly on every device or browser without the slightest difference in quality or functionalities. This is going to make things a lot convenient for the users as well.

Offline access

The offline access is going to be the most powerful aspect of PWAs as these apps can be used with a low-quality internet and even offline. For those who are wondering as to how would that be possible, it will be achieved by caching the information and serving it to you offline. However, it will be quite necessary to use service workers on the part of the users in order to capitalize on it.

Better safety

The advent of progressive web apps is believed to bring about a massive elevation in the safety and protection of sensitive data online especially for the apps related to online banking or online shopping. It will be achieved by serving connection over secure protocol HTTPS only to encrypt all the communications between the browser and the web apps.

Always on the latest version

Is it annoying every time you are asked to get any of your mobile applications updated to the latest versions? However, this doesn’t hold true for progressive web apps as they work more like websites and are automatically updated. Users can always have the latest versions of these apps without having to download them.

Fast loading

It is not really difficult to visualize the way users normally respond to slow page loading. A slow page loading tends to get the users irritated and leave the site. Users aren’t going to have any page loading related issue with progressive web apps as these apps loads at an unimaginably fast speed every time except for the first time wherein the speed would be average. Thereafter, the loads will be just at a lightning speed and what makes it possible is the app shell that is saved on the device that catches the information or the content every time and displays it in no time.

Conclusion

Progressive web app is consistently getting better with times and what we are seeing now is just the beginning. PWAs are certainly going to get a lot better in the subsequent years and with that, things are going get a lot better for both businesses and consumers as well. Most importantly, it’s in the process of accentuating the users’ experience to a large extent and it has already begun to show the signs.

This article originally appeared on JaxEnter. Read the original here.

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