Building an appier web

For too long, the Web has been seen as a poor relation to native apps, but no longer! Weve been able to add websites to our home screens for a while, but with better offline support and notifications and richer metadata, we can finally build web experiences that rival or exceed native apps. Andy Davies explains how these technologies can be combined to deliver great web experiences.

Although the Web has its own unique advantages, for too long, it’s been seen as a poor relation to native apps. Retailers, financial services companies, and many other businesses perceive native apps as the way to gain a foothold on a user’s valuable home screen space, often to the detriment of their websites. The Web hasn’t been standing idly by while native apps exploded in popularity. It’s been working on its own set of technologies that enable us to extend the Web’s reach onto our devices and even allow our pages to work when we’ve got poor or no network availability. Andy Davies explores these new capabilities, not least the ability to work offline, send notifications to our users devices, and even compete for home screen space. Along the way, Andy discusses the capabilities that are missing or perhaps still works in progress—for example, how the Web might make payments or identity as easy as the app stores currently do. You’ll leave with a good understanding of the technologies and techniques that underpin progressive web apps and be ready to apply them in your own day-to-day work.