thanks a lot of this AMA, you're definitely a developer hero, it's unreal how many times I ended up articles written or co-written by you :-D
My question is not technical, more philosophical.
What do you envision for the future of PWAs?
Also, Chrome seems at the forefront of web dev and PWAs but for obvious reasons it could be dangerous to rely too much on Chrome as the target browser, are you hopeful the other major browsers (mainly Safari because its user base on mobile it's massive) will catch up?
After years of using Chrome on desktop and Android phone now my dev and "normal" browser is Firefox on the beta channel and it seems fantastic, so there's hope there :-)
PWAs enjoy a few advantages today. They're zero-install (users can choose to keep them, but installing them is something you opt to do after you're using them). They start pretty instantly and don't require a large binary commitment to start using them. You can use PWAs without needing to engage with a App Store. You just directly go to the experience. You can update them on the go. You just use the PWA and get the latest version.
That said, there are still large areas for improvement. PWAs are web apps and if the web doesn't have an API for doing what you need, you may need to look at other platforms for options. I'm hopeful in the future we'll see continued evolution of the device capabilities available to PWAs. I would also like to keep exploring what we can do to make it easier to build smooth animations and transitions on the web.
We've seen progress made in mobile Safari over the last year. Safari now supports Service Workers and has some Web App manifest support. There remain some platform limitations there, such as lack of Web Push notifications. Thomas Steiner on our team has been tracking some outstanding bugs in their PWA implementation that could use some love twitter.com/tomayac/status/1015689.... I'm hopeful they'll catch up.
PWAs enjoy a few advantages today. They're zero-install (users can choose to keep them, but installing them is something you opt to do after you're using them). They start pretty instantly and don't require a large binary commitment to start using them. You can use PWAs without needing to engage with a App Store. You just directly go to the experience. You can update them on the go. You just use the PWA and get the latest version.
Yeah, that's what I love about them. I used Twitter's PWA a lot and I did not miss the official app at all.
We've seen progress made in mobile Safari over the last year. Safari now supports Service Workers and has some Web App manifest support.
I remember that, that was a really good news.
I'm hopeful they'll catch up.
Crossing fingers! A full support would be a game changer for PWAs. Also hope things like Web USB get more love by browsers.
Browsers developers have a lot on their plates :)
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Hi Addy,
thanks a lot of this AMA, you're definitely a developer hero, it's unreal how many times I ended up articles written or co-written by you :-D
My question is not technical, more philosophical.
What do you envision for the future of PWAs?
Also, Chrome seems at the forefront of web dev and PWAs but for obvious reasons it could be dangerous to rely too much on Chrome as the target browser, are you hopeful the other major browsers (mainly Safari because its user base on mobile it's massive) will catch up?
After years of using Chrome on desktop and Android phone now my dev and "normal" browser is Firefox on the beta channel and it seems fantastic, so there's hope there :-)
You're very kind!
PWAs enjoy a few advantages today. They're zero-install (users can choose to keep them, but installing them is something you opt to do after you're using them). They start pretty instantly and don't require a large binary commitment to start using them. You can use PWAs without needing to engage with a App Store. You just directly go to the experience. You can update them on the go. You just use the PWA and get the latest version.
That said, there are still large areas for improvement. PWAs are web apps and if the web doesn't have an API for doing what you need, you may need to look at other platforms for options. I'm hopeful in the future we'll see continued evolution of the device capabilities available to PWAs. I would also like to keep exploring what we can do to make it easier to build smooth animations and transitions on the web.
We've seen progress made in mobile Safari over the last year. Safari now supports Service Workers and has some Web App manifest support. There remain some platform limitations there, such as lack of Web Push notifications. Thomas Steiner on our team has been tracking some outstanding bugs in their PWA implementation that could use some love twitter.com/tomayac/status/1015689.... I'm hopeful they'll catch up.
Yeah, that's what I love about them. I used Twitter's PWA a lot and I did not miss the official app at all.
I remember that, that was a really good news.
Crossing fingers! A full support would be a game changer for PWAs. Also hope things like Web USB get more love by browsers.
Browsers developers have a lot on their plates :)