Why Progressive Web Apps might be just the thing Microsoft needs
Remember when the Windows Store had those awesome and unique apps that no other platform did?
Me neither, and that’s the problem.
Windows barely had apps better than any other major platform. Right from the inception of the Windows Store people have expressed their concerns over the infamous “Windows App Gap”. Microsoft has just failed to attract the attention of app developers to persuade them to build apps for the Windows Store. The following is an excerpt from Windows report:
Currently, there are about 700,000 Windows 10 applications in the Windows Store, at the time of the writing (June 15, 2017). And the sad part is that amongst those 700,000 applications, you might not find some very important ones. For example, most important Google apps, like Gmail, YouTube, or Google Music are still missing. This fact tells us that, besides the relatively high number of apps, the Windows Store still struggles with big developer names.
Alright, enough ranting
What can be done
Enter Progressive Web Apps or PWAs for short.
Progressive Web Apps are user experiences that have the reach of the web, and are:
Reliable — Load instantly and never show the downasaur, even in uncertain network conditions.
Fast — Respond quickly to user interactions with silky smooth animations and no janky scrolling.
Engaging — Feel like a natural app on the device, with an immersive user experience.
This new level of quality allows Progressive Web Apps to earn a place on the user’s home screen.
Here’s the explain-like-I’m-five version:
They are glorified web sites (*cough* Web apps actually *cough*) that need internet only when you load them for the first time. They can then then work without any connection.
But why?
- The biggest benefit of a PWA is that it does not need an app store. It is truly multiplatform, and follows the “Write once, run everywhere” methodology to the heart.
- It uses less data than a native app (An app that you download from your app store). So PWAs seem like an ideal choice for developing nations around the world where internet connectivity is not very easy to get.
- Less data usage means less time to load the app. When was the last time you went back to an app or website that just won’t load? Exactly.
What does all this mean for Microsoft?
As is evident, developers just don’t want to make apps for the Windows Store, stating lack of users on the platform. Even attempts like the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) haven’t been very successful in gaining the attention of developers. Ultimately, in my opinion, PWAs are the thing that will save Windows as a Mobile platform. I say so because this time around developers don’t require to do anything different than just building their mobile site, as opposed to learning C# or any other programming language than the one they already use.
Microsoft seems to have understood this fact a little late, since it is only recently they have started implementing APIs like Service Workers and IndexedDB into their Edge browser.
Better late than never
The work Microsoft has been doing recently to ensure their browser has the latest features according to the current web standards (for example: ES6, WebVR, Service Workers, etc.) is very refreshing to see. It is definitely a step in the right direction and I must say they have learnt their lesson from the failure that Internet Explorer was. Here is a list of features Microsoft has been working on to implement in their Edge browser compared to other major browsers and clearly, Microsoft is way ahead of Apple’s Safari. Like I’ve stated before, the work Microsoft has been doing recently in web and open source is just very refreshing to see.
Lets see what Microsoft decides to do next so as to improve their platform.
Fingers crossed!
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