Mobile users are spending 80 to 94 percent of their mobile use time in apps, so you’d think the mobile web would be a thing of the past right? But the average mobile user also visits 100 different websites each month, and only half of all mobile users don’t download any new apps during that same period.
In order to achieve the speed and ease of use provided by apps and the ability to reach new users, Vahid Taslimi, Director of forms and mobile at Nintex syas businesses need to adopt a hybrid solution, where they retain the features of websites while maintaining an app-like feel through progressive web apps.
The below is the transcript from a conversation we had with Vahid, about all things PWA in 2018.
Taslimi: I see PWA as a way to enable web applications to work more reliably on the mobile devices. Specifically, with a better user experience, and enabling them to work offline. For the mobile websites, you still need to have a good network connection and the experience may not be as good.
Taslimi: I see them fitting best for a company’s internal applications. I don’t see them being competitive in the consumer application world, due to the user experience not being on par with the native apps. However, for the internal applications where no advanced hardware access is required and you know more about the target users and have more control over how something is going to be used, PWA’s is going to be a good answer. The other area I see them fitting is content heavy sites like news websites which traditionally do not require device-specific capabilities.
Taslimi: Advanced hardware access and User experience. I don’t see them achieving that anytime soon. I’m not just talking about how a page looks on the mobile device but rather how you achieve certain tasks like taking multiple photos from camera and attaching them at the same time, or working with a map control, Bluetooth, NFC, etc. Another point to consider is that you want your users to feel at home when using your app on the mobile device OS which they are used to. They expect the same quality and behavior from your app as a native app.
Taslimi: Well, that’s the risk you should always consider when selecting a technology for your mobile app. App Store policies can change and do, which can impact your app and your business mobile. A good example of this is when Apple decided to ban templated apps.
To answer the question, if webview controllers go away, developers will need to start using some other frameworks which compile their code into native code rather than running them in the webview controllers.
Taslimi: HTTP/2 Reduced latency is going to help a lot with PWA’s, especially for content delivery systems.
Taslimi: There are two aspects to look at this from; 1- from the user's point of view and 2- from the developers’ point of view.
From Users’ point of view, I don’t see much benefits. In fact, the users should not worry about the technology the app has been created at all.
From the developers’ point of view, the main benefit is creating and maintaining one single codebase for various platforms, including the web. This means a lot more efficiency and a lot less learning curve for the existing and new team members which will result in a lot more innovation time. (rather than spending the time to fix issues across multiple platforms). The other benefit you’d get as a developer is the release time. Although these days Apple and Google both do a great job in approving Apps quickly, there is still an uncertainty about how long it’s going to take for your hotfix to make its way to the end users’ hand.
Taslimi: I see people either searching for what they need through search engines or app catalog websites, or they are going to be initiated from the company’s website itself, meaning you’d first find a company for the service you are after and from there you’d access their web app.
Taslimi: What we need to realize is that users are not developers. There may be red tape on mobile app stores, but in the end, it is to provide a better and safer experience for the end user.
Taslimi: I believe they are going to find their ways in amongst specific types of apps for which they are suited well. However, I don’t see native mobile apps disappearing. There is going to be a lot of apps written in native technologies to get the best of the OS features and user experience.
One thing I believe is going to excel in the near future, is the ability to write your business logic of the app using cross platforms technologies, compiling them into a native library for each target platform and using them in the native UI.
Address:
3003 East Chestnut Expy
STE# 575
Springfield, Mo 65802
Phone: 1-844-277-3386
Fax:417-429-2935
E-Mail: contact@appdevelopermagazine.com