Apps are one of the great success stories of the mobile age. People love their easy accessibility and their native speed – what they don’t like is getting them. Going to the app store, finding the right app, completing the download, etc. all create friction in the user experience. In fact, each step to download reduces 20% of users. That’s why over 50% of smart phone users download zero apps a month.
Enter Progressive Web Apps. PWAs borrow the best characteristics from regular web pages and mobile apps — they are fast, reliable and engaging.
Perhaps more importantly, they also reduce the steps between discovery of an app and getting it on your mobile device’s home screen. As a user explores a web page, they get prompted to add it to their device, and once they tap it, POOF – it instantly appears as an app-like icon ready to access.
PWAs are new and still have some challenges to overcome before they go mainstream – chief among them is that not all browsers support them. That being said, they will soon co-exist with native apps much like downloadable music co-exists with streaming services. Due to their superiority on a number of fronts (not all covered here), we believe PWAs will eventually replace apps.
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