Progressive Web Apps: What Are PWAs Exactly and It’s Characteristics?

With the mobile app industry taking the business industry by a storm there are many new terms and technologies that are coming into the picture. One of them being PWA (Progressive web apps) Let’s see and what and how important are these:

What are PWAs?

PWAs i.e. progressive web apps load like regular web pages or websites and have the same look and feel like any other native mobile app.

The only difference is that it will be in the lite version.

Just add the extension to chrome and the lite version will be added to your home screen or you can use it simply on your browser. It sends push notifications, lets you create your account, lets you work offline and do all that a native app can do.

With the feel of a native app, they are alternatives that are lightweight and provide various other advantages. Let’s have a look at the various features that characterize a PWA.

Characteristics of PWAs

There are some characteristic features that define PWAs.These include:

• Progressive: These PWAs work for every platform, regardless of the browser choice.
• Reactive: Be it desktop, laptops, phones it is well suited to all. They adapt themselves according to the screen size.
• Connectivity independent: A very interesting feature of working offline is also provided.
• Native App like feel: It gives the feel of an app i.e is easy navigation and user interaction. Also, it sends push notifications.
• Fast Performance: Nobody has the times to sit and wait for a website to load. PWAs have this also covered. They have fast performance and faster or almost instant loading time.
• Safe: They are safe and secure and don’t let the content to be tampered with.
• No updation required: Yes one of the major reasons people shirk away from apps is their regular demand to be updated. With PWAs this hickup is also solved and there is no need for the app to be regularly updated.
• Re-engageable: Re-engagement becomes easy due to features like push notifications.
• Easy installation: Due to their light weight they are easy to download and install from the browser itself. No need to hustle on the play store for downloading or looking for apps not available on the app store.
• Linkable: There are no complex installation procedures and it easily sharable using URL.

Progressive apps are set to grow in the market and famous and popular brand like ola, uber, etc have already launched the progressive version of their native apps.

Though the progressive apps may not completely take over the native apps, they are definitely going to stand as strong competition for them. While on one hand, some people may not like the lite version but on the other, for some, it may be a boon and very useful.

The Progressive app versions of the native ones are not only lightweight but are safe, secure and easily installable. They also don’t require a lot of data to be downloaded and updated every now and then.

At the end of the day, PWAs are the future of the app industry.