PWAs have been an increasing trend in the last few years since Google released them in 2015.
Frances Berriman and the developer Alex Russell from Google actually coined the term Progressive Web App to describe apps that exploit the new functions of browsers as “Service Worker “ and the Web App Manifests.
Together with Firebase, they represent a true revolution in the way we think of and create web and mobile apps.
Firebase is Google’s Backend-as-a-service, and it’s meant to free the developers from server maintenance and from writing basic APIs, still allowing them to add custom APIs as cloud functions.
Let’s see more in depth what are the incredible benefits of these new apps
Reduction of data traffic
In 2017 the app downloads were over 200 billion. The data shared are an enormous amount and therefore there is a need for reducing it.
In some use cases the reduction of the shared data is presented as much as 90%, which also means a lot of costs saved for the companies.
Offline Mode
PWAs are able to work regardless of the network state, thanks to the Service Worker.
Firebase also allows to execute queries without an internet connection, these queries are saved on the local server until a new connection is available, and then synchronizes them with the server.
No updates required
PWAs don’t need to be updated on the App Store or on the Play store, in fact, they update automatically when a new version is released, just like a traditional web page when you refresh it.
Engaging
Researches by Forbes have shown that session durations are 100% longer and the number of sessions per user increases of 43%. Due to an experience that is more similar to an app thanks to push notifications and the possibility of saving it as an icon on your home screen, without the downsides of a regular app, like the longer loading times and the installing process.
Performance
PWAs performances are way above the average of a regular app because most of the files useful to make it work are saved on the local server. This allows an improved user experience, dramatically increase the conversion rates optimizing the SEO, thanks to the low loading times and low abandon rate.
Low development costs
Thanks to Angular and other frameworks is possible to develop apps both in iOS and Android in one go. This means a considerable decrease in the development costs benefiting from the hardware support and using push notifications just like normal apps.
Our vision for the future
PWAs have shown an incredible potential to revolutionize the global web development scene, they allow better performances with lower costs, they combine very different devices and are easy to create.
At Skaffolder we strongly believe in this innovation, that’s why we created a boilerplate that allows you to easily build a PWA with Angular 6 + Firebase.
Here you can find an example of this application :
https://github.com/skaffolder/Example_Angular6_PWA_Firebase_boilerplate
Skaffolder is a code generator that allows you to create a working web app in just a few clicks in many programming languages. The provided code is high-quality, easy to understand and fully customizable.
Other than Java, NodeJS, PHP and many more, we recently integrated Angular 6 + Firebase.
Register for free on this link and build your first PWA!