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I run a website where I get asked quite often to make it into a mobile app, and I reply by showing how to add it to the device's homescreen and not need an app.

I run a website where I get asked quite often to make it into a mobile app, and I reply by showing how to add it to the device's homescreen and not need an app. Never ever ever in the few dozen times I've had this conversation has anyone ever actually done it. In fact most responses to that suggestion have been overwhelmingly negative. They want an app, even though it'd just be a wrapper around the site with no added features, they want an app.

mountainofdeath 8y ago
Bingo. That's exactly what end-consumers want. If you have a good enough PWA, you can wrap it in a single webview and push it to the appstore/play market. The presence is the important part, the actual implementation does not matter.
mikece 8y ago
Why not just add the ability to list a PWA in the app store? At that point the installation is intentional and the overhead on Apple/Google is minimal... and Apple still gets their $99/year to allow making it easy to put your app's icon on a user's home screen.
- kyle-rb 8y ago
  On one hand I can see rational reasons for them not allowing it; Apple doesn't control when you push updates to your PWA, so they don't want to give their seal of approval by listing it in the app store. But on the other hand, it's pretty depressing to give up the dream of instant app updates, by wrapping your shiny PWA in Cordova and promising to never execute external JavaScript.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    I recently picked up app development and I went for React Native + Expo. I was shocked that I could push OTA updates without going through the store. Basically if my app was approved once, I can make huge sweeping fundamental changes to the app without running it past Apple again. Basically the only things you can't change are the permissions. Anything else is fair game. And with Expo it was basically trivial to get an app up and working (don't take this as biased praise in favor of RN or Expo, I still have serious dissatisfaction with both technologies, but this particular part was shockingly seamless). So I guess moral of the story, wrap your PWA in an Expo app and update as often as you want without having to resubmit.
    - kyle-rb 8y ago
      Oh, cool. I think I was confused about Apple's rules on this. I guess you are allowed to push minor updates to your app, as long as it's JavaScript being executed by their JavaScript engine/WebKit. But apparently there is (or at one point was) a restriction that says you're not supposed to add new features via remote executable code pushes [0] (although I'm not sure if they'd notice). [0] https://rollout.io/blog/updating-apps-without-app-store/ https://rollout.io/blog/updating-apps-without-app-store/
  - mikece 8y ago
    Pushing updates without going through the app store has been allowed by Apple as long as the assets being updated are not binary code; specifically CSS, HTML, and JavaScript are okay (I wonder whether WebAssembly will be considered "binary" or not... will be interesting to see). I convinced a former employer to abandon their Xamarin-built app and switch to Ionic (Cordova with nice, fancy UI additions) specifically because they could push updates to the app without going through the app store. Officially (unless things changed?) the Google Play store says this isn't allowed but there is no review process with Google Play so publishing a new app and then pushing an update for the previous version won't likely get you in trouble. If someone HAS been busted by the Google Play cops for this it would be news to me.
    - yesimahuman 8y ago
      Ionic CEO here - have seen no issues with anyone using our deploy (web-content remote update) feature on either platform to date
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Microsoft does this on UWP.
disiplus 8y ago
well i had a different experience. we dong have a native app, but some of our b2b customers wanted an "app" to use on mobile. The app is responsive so we show them how to add it to homescreen and that's it.
- freehunter 8y ago
  It might be business customers are more willing to jump through hoops. My website is targeted at the general public in a small midwestern town, where technology is a four letter word.
  - zapzupnz 8y ago
    Indeed. Business customers aren't representative of the greater public because they tend to take their issues directly to IT support, they get it sorted, and don't think about it again. Your every day average user doesn't have an IT support department to which to go. They do, however, have the App Store/Play Store.

mountainofdeath 8y ago

Bingo. That's exactly what end-consumers want. If you have a good enough PWA, you can wrap it in a single webview and push it to the appstore/play market. The presence is the important part, the actual implementation does not matter.

mikece 8y ago

Why not just add the ability to list a PWA in the app store? At that point the installation is intentional and the overhead on Apple/Google is minimal... and Apple still gets their $99/year to allow making it easy to put your app's icon on a user's home screen.

kyle-rb 8y ago
On one hand I can see rational reasons for them not allowing it; Apple doesn't control when you push updates to your PWA, so they don't want to give their seal of approval by listing it in the app store. But on the other hand, it's pretty depressing to give up the dream of instant app updates, by wrapping your shiny PWA in Cordova and promising to never execute external JavaScript.
- freehunter 8y ago
  I recently picked up app development and I went for React Native + Expo. I was shocked that I could push OTA updates without going through the store. Basically if my app was approved once, I can make huge sweeping fundamental changes to the app without running it past Apple again. Basically the only things you can't change are the permissions. Anything else is fair game. And with Expo it was basically trivial to get an app up and working (don't take this as biased praise in favor of RN or Expo, I still have serious dissatisfaction with both technologies, but this particular part was shockingly seamless). So I guess moral of the story, wrap your PWA in an Expo app and update as often as you want without having to resubmit.
  - kyle-rb 8y ago
    Oh, cool. I think I was confused about Apple's rules on this. I guess you are allowed to push minor updates to your app, as long as it's JavaScript being executed by their JavaScript engine/WebKit. But apparently there is (or at one point was) a restriction that says you're not supposed to add new features via remote executable code pushes [0] (although I'm not sure if they'd notice). [0] https://rollout.io/blog/updating-apps-without-app-store/ https://rollout.io/blog/updating-apps-without-app-store/
- mikece 8y ago
  Pushing updates without going through the app store has been allowed by Apple as long as the assets being updated are not binary code; specifically CSS, HTML, and JavaScript are okay (I wonder whether WebAssembly will be considered "binary" or not... will be interesting to see). I convinced a former employer to abandon their Xamarin-built app and switch to Ionic (Cordova with nice, fancy UI additions) specifically because they could push updates to the app without going through the app store. Officially (unless things changed?) the Google Play store says this isn't allowed but there is no review process with Google Play so publishing a new app and then pushing an update for the previous version won't likely get you in trouble. If someone HAS been busted by the Google Play cops for this it would be news to me.
  - yesimahuman 8y ago
    Ionic CEO here - have seen no issues with anyone using our deploy (web-content remote update) feature on either platform to date
pjmlp 8y ago
Microsoft does this on UWP.

disiplus 8y ago

well i had a different experience. we dong have a native app, but some of our b2b customers wanted an "app" to use on mobile. The app is responsive so we show them how to add it to homescreen and that's it.

freehunter 8y ago
It might be business customers are more willing to jump through hoops. My website is targeted at the general public in a small midwestern town, where technology is a four letter word.
- zapzupnz 8y ago
  Indeed. Business customers aren't representative of the greater public because they tend to take their issues directly to IT support, they get it sorted, and don't think about it again. Your every day average user doesn't have an IT support department to which to go. They do, however, have the App Store/Play Store.