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of building online services and delivering them across the
Internet, but of using these services. At the very least, it’s not
dead.
The Progressive Web App
The Weather Company offers a smartphone app, like any other
sane company that harbors aspirations on the Internet. But it
has seen more and more people visit its mobile website in
recent years. According to Sheri Bachstein, the Weather
Company’s vice president of web, about fifty percent of its
web traffic now arrives on mobile phones and tablets (as
opposed to the desktop). Yes, more people use the company’s
various apps, but increasingly, the mobile web is a vital way of
reaching its worldwide audience—not to mention maintaining
and expanding that audience.
The company now offers what Google calls a “progressive web
app.” Basically, this is a website that, in sometimes gradually
evolving ways, behaves like a native app. You visit it through a
browser, just like any other website. But as you continue to
use it, turning on certain tools, it transforms into something
more.
With a progressive
web app, you can set
up push notifications,
so you know when
new content arrives.
You can add an icon to
your phone’s home
screen, so you can
rapidly revisit the
service. And perhaps
most importantly, thanks to a technology called service
workers, it can operate both online and off, kinda like a web
app. Among other things, this means that when you visit the
web app a second time, it loads faster. It’s more like the thing
is sitting on your phone.
‘You use it. You like it. And
over time, you progressively
build a relationship with it.’
—ALEX KOMOROSKE, CHROME PRODUCT
MANAGER