17 ms·

PWA Store

402 points by mattpearl 6y ago

paxys 6y ago
Neat site, but the "Why PWA's?" section is laughable. > FREE to install > HTTPS is required meaning you data is secure > Takes up less storage on your phone. No need to pay extra money for higher storage > No in app purchases or ads. Just a clean and simple app experience > Has an offline mode. Apps can be used in areas where this is no internet connection All of them are either misleading or completely wrong. The comparison randomly switches from websites to phone apps whenever convenient. It would be a lot better to provide a more objective description of what PWAs even are.
- atupis 6y ago
  Agree had no clue what is pwa until I started reading comments here.
- SimeVidas 6y ago
  The number one reason to choose PWA over native is performance.
  - sk0g 6y ago
    If performance means performantly hogging resources performing the most basic of task, then sure.
  - jamil7 6y ago
    Could you elaborate on that? Performance of what exactly?
    - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
      It must be performance of your developers being able to develop for one codebase.
    - SimeVidas 6y ago
      Loading times and responsiveness. For example, Twitter’s native iOS app is about 115 MB, while their PWA is a tiny fraction of that, probably not more than a few MB. This unsurprisingly reflects on performance.
      - jamil7 6y ago
        Wow thats huge. I haven't used twitter in years, I wonder if it was always so bloated.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
  - pssdbt 6y ago
    That's the reason to choose PWA over other web technologies, not native.
    - http-teapot 6y ago
      What other technologies?
      - twicetwice 6y ago
        I'm assuming they're talking about a standard SPA (or even a conventional full-page-reload web app), or React Native or Electron on the desktop or similar. In the former case, a PWA can use service workers and caching and so on to get better network performance. In the latter case, they can leverage a preexisting Chromium/other browser instance to get most of the advantages of "write once, run everywhere" without bundling a whole browser instance with your app. I can't wait for full PWA support in Firefox, especially on desktop!
  - colordrops 6y ago
    No way are they more performant than native apps. Their big advantages are write once run anywhere, no vendor lock in, easier install, and more control, privacy and sandboxing since they are web apps.
- enos_feedler 6y ago
  The whole idea of debating PWA and native apps is really old. I wish Google would just come out and say "we tried this idea, it wasn't the right one, we're sorry, PWAs are dead." Until this happens this idea will never die. Google is happy to kill good products but won't kill terrible ideas!
  - Kiro 6y ago
    How is it terrible?
    - Kiro 6y ago
      Apparently a controversial question considering the downvotes. PWAs are not AMP or some proprietary technology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_application I don't see how it is a terrible idea that needs to be killed. Sounds like a technological regression if support were to be removed. It's not like you're not allowed to still build native apps so please make me understand this argument.
      - enos_feedler 6y ago
        Hard to say whether the down votes are because of my attitude or the true belief that PWAs are a viable alternative that should be weighed against native apps. And yes, I am advocating for a technical regression. I think the web platform has pushed things unnecessarily too far because it cared more about competing with apps then embracing what the web is good for. If you want proof this is true, look no further than technologies such as AMP that trade away the general usage of these advanced web technologies for something the end user actually wants: a good user experience. You could also look at the numerous native apps that have mini apps and games that are developed using web technologies. If the web platform delivered features developers needed, these mini experiences could run in embedded web controllers. Instead they are custom webviews with hooks into the native platform to bridge the gap to what developers actually need.
franciscop 6y ago
Interesting, and congratulations on launching the site! How do you plan on growing and generating demand? I starting making exactly this back in 2018 but didn't get people interested back then so I dropped it and let the domain expire, see the original (seems broken though): https://web.archive.org/web/20180901171627/http://web-app.store/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180901171627/http://web-app.st... It was my first time using a skeleton in CSS and using a Google Form as the way to submit a new app (with the spreadsheet as the database). I believe it was also my first PWA but I'm not 100% sure about that. While I learned a lot, some times I regret not having followed through, will keep an eye on https://progressiveapp.store/ https://progressiveapp.store/ to see how it goes.
- mattpearl 6y ago
  well I really just love PWA's and the freedom it brings to the developers and wanted to create a store to help show their potential. Appreciate it!
  - aabbcc1241 6y ago
    PWA is definitely great for developers and users. But I often see users asking for native apps even when they're using PWA at hand. They say "It's more convenience to have app version".
    - julianwachholz 6y ago
      I'd argue that many people wouldn't know wether they were looking at a PWA or a native application written in a JS container format (like react-native). I can't think of a way that native apps are more convenient? With automatic updates it's even less convenient to have the updates go through the app store.
      - aabbcc1241 6y ago
        They may not distinct visually, but iPhone user without chrome can definitely tell. I totally agree with you, I developed a PWA and 'native app' which is mostly an webview of the same content. I often use the PWA version but it seems most (if not all) of my users are using the app version even when the app stores approve updates in a notifiable slower rate. My native app do used some native plugin, but those functions are not often used by the users. So I feel they just blindly ask for apps. Maybe they think native app loads faster than PWA? People don't want to wait for a SPA first-time loading but they won't blame the download and install time of native apps.
sdan 6y ago
Played the dino game, reminds me of elementary school. Pretty neat!
- mattpearl 6y ago
  glad you enjoyed the ad free gaming experience!
blkhp19 6y ago
I hate to say it but this just demonstrates, all in one place, how far behind PWAs are from native apps. Does anyone have an example of a PWA (hosted here or elsewhere) that rivals the best apps seen in native app stores? I’m talking about beautiful animations, native-feeling navigation, and an overall immersive, cohesive experience?
- mattpearl 6y ago
  PWA's have room to grow but have a lot of benefits over native apps
  - Nicksil 6y ago
    >PWA's have room to grow but have a lot of benefits over native apps Just gonna leave us hangin'?
    - p1necone 6y ago
      Biggest thing for me would be instant installs and no/much less space taken on local storage.
      - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
        In addition: not having to install at all to be able to try it out.
      - fidelramos 6y ago
        Most important thing for me is sandboxing, no abuse of the device's data and sensors. I hate how most native apps invade your privacy.
        Nicksil 6y ago
        >Most important thing for me is sandboxing, no abuse of the device's data and sensors. I hate how most native apps invade your privacy. User abuse is rampant on the Web. For example, those APIs you mention are used to fingerprint machines. If you're genuinely concerned with abuse of privacy, you'd do yourself a huge favor by researching the history and current mechanisms for such abuse by websites and, by extension, PWAs.
wyxuan 6y ago
The tower game was really good and if you told me it was a pwa I would've been blown away
- kevincox 6y ago
  https://www.towergame.app/ https://www.towergame.app/
- pier25 6y ago
  What engine does it use? Pixi / Phaser?
su 6y ago
Congratulations on the launch. I have been lately working with lot of clients who want PWA's and I have found https://appsco.pe/ https://appsco.pe/ to be one of the nicest PWA gallery.
- satyrnein 6y ago
  What motivates them to want PWAs, out of curiosity? Usually interest seems to come from developers.
  - kevincox 6y ago
    I like websites more than apps for a couple of reasons: - Better isolation from my device. I don't worry about them sucking up information I don't want them to have. - I can share links to my friends (if the website has good URLs of course) - I can use it on every device. I don't need to worry if it has an Android App and website, I can just use the website on both. - I can use the same app as my friends no matter what phone they use.
  - rchaud 6y ago
    The motivation can come from privacy-conscious users as well. I use the Uber PWA (m.uber.com) instead of the app because I can control the permissions it has if it runs in the browser. While you can control permissions in the native app as well, they get switched back to their defaults each time an app update is installed.
- z3t4 6y ago
  I submitted one of my PWA's on appsco.pe 8 month ago and it has not yet been added. So I guess it's not actively maintained!?
GoodDreams 6y ago
Is there a simple way to charge for a monthly PWA subscription without coding a backend to handle the various subscription use cases and without providing a complicated UI to subscribers?
- paxys 6y ago
  Well it depends on how "simple" you want it to be, but services have Stripe have pretty comprehensive solutions.
  - GoodDreams 6y ago
    My understanding is that Stripe offers UI to sign up for a subscription, but then offers only an API for other subscription actions such as changing from monthly to yearly or cancelling. Someone have a link describing Stripe's comprehensive UI for subscriptions?
- jamil7 6y ago
  I believe on Android there is some deeper integration with google pay. I’m on mobile so I can’t find a link right now.
kgraves 6y ago
How is the push notification story with PWA’s?
- mattpearl 6y ago
  On android and desktop notifications work well. We use push notifications to inform users when their PWA is approved. IOS it is still not supported yet but should be soon
jedberg 6y ago
I'm on Safari and I clicked through to the HN app, and was basically presented with a blank page with some headings: https://imgur.com/a/jqUw5Gl https://imgur.com/a/jqUw5Gl I assume this isn't what it should look like. Sorry about the bug report here, I couldn't find any contact link.
- mattpearl 6y ago
  contact is at the bottom of the About page. Appreciate the bug report! will look into it
- robarr 6y ago
  You have to launch it pressing the free button.
rileytg 6y ago
what are your thoughts on recent news apple is removing functionality important to PWAs?
- mattpearl 6y ago
  Heard about it, but that only applies when PWA's are running in the browser. When installed on the home screen it will not have an effect
  - cstrat 6y ago
    Oh I missed that bit? That is good to hear.
- mattpearl 6y ago
  apple is lagging behind on PWA support but PWA's are definitely coming either way. the reason why apple is lagging on support is because it will take a significant hit on their app store revenues as PWA's remove having to go throw third parties such as apple
  - FridgeSeal 6y ago
    Why would I use a PWA over a native so if I had the choice though?
    - paxys 6y ago
      Well if the PWA experience is good enough then some developers aren't going to list their apps in the app store at all so they can bypass Apple's revenue cut. PWAs also have less access in general and so are more secure/sandboxed.
      - mattpearl 6y ago
        ^ exactly and when there are big benefits to developers like that and the technology is focused on more, the maturity of what it will become is what really excites me
RyanShook 6y ago
I held out hope for PWAs for so long but I think React Native has won.
- mattpearl 6y ago
  React Native may have won some battles but not yet the war ;]
- paxys 6y ago
  No one has "won". The vast majority of phone apps are still written using native code and frameworks, and that will be the case for the foreseeable future.
  - smbullet 6y ago
    PWA's aren't for developers with the time and resources to build native apps. It's for web developers who want to improve the mobile experience on their sites.
    - paxys 6y ago
      > It's for web developers who want to improve the mobile experience on their sites Then they wouldn't be using React Native in the first place
    - esprehn 6y ago
      Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok all have PWAs, plus many more well funded businesses.
- sevencolors 6y ago
  This comment won’t age well :)
fermienrico 6y ago
This is further regression from UI consistency, with no supervision, now on Desktop. Every javascript developer has their own way of doing UI, often a hodgepodge of framework libraries mashed up to make it work. IMO, the entire world has regressed into chaos when it comes to design and UI. Democratic design choices and process is far inferior to dictatorial approach we had going in 90's and into 2000's (See 98.css recently posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22940564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22940564). Let everyone run loose and we all lose. Yes, it was painful to develop applications using native UI elements but those apps provide a fantastic, consistent UI experience. In addition, the entire Javascript ecosystem is rotten with horrible bloat built atop more bloat by many inexperienced software engineers - sorry, I don't meant to insult anyone but this is a factual observation from my own experience of developing on React and Angular. When a website that's serving trivial content is hogging so much CPU, it is time to refactor everything. It is actually time to refactor what we see as a modern browser.
- jamil7 6y ago
  > Yes, it was painful to develop applications using native UI I actually think it’s getting easier. Android and iOS are both offering quick, modern ways of building UIs with there upcoming UI frameworks thats IMO far less work than the web where things have to often be built from scratch or from some third party that will abandon it.
  - oaiey 6y ago
    I think the issue is the following: In the 90s there was exactly two vendors with reasonable user base and design philosophies (Microsoft and Apple). And even they had a similar behavior. With the advent of web application we ignored it for a while (it is just a window with some strange stuff in it). However, with the mobile platforms (Android, iOS), bootstrap framework and the rise of strict user interface guideline by mega companies (like Google Material Design), the number of UX styles literally exploded. I try to enumerate them, but the web is full of variants. As a dream, we should consolidate to device factors: Desktop, Mobile, Watch and Interactive. But Apple, Microsoft and Google are not on the same page here ;) If they would, magic could happen.
atupis 6y ago
Could you build PWA top of IPFS or something similar and create decentralized apps.
- riyakhanna1983 6y ago
  Out of curiosity, what advantage would that provide?
  - atupis 6y ago
    1.fault tolerance 2. scalable and 3. would be a pretty cool and novel concept.
- fidelramos 6y ago
  I don't see why it wouldn't be possible, there are already working websites on IPFS. I think we will see more as IPFS support in browsers increase. Opera launched native integration for IPFS weeks ago, hopefully Firefox and Chrome will follow at some point.
- jka 6y ago
  It's possible that both the hosting[1] of apps and also inter-app communication[2] would be possible via IPFS. Orchestration of the resources (CPU, memory, storage) to run API services would also be possible in a distribution manner if we can envision something like Kubernetes to manage workload allocation across compute hardware (smartphones?) and if there's a way for participating nodes to obtain container images and storage volumes (IPFS / Tahoe-LAFS?). Signing and trust would still be an issue, particularly for container images and storage volumes. [1] - https://withblue.ink/2019/03/20/hugo-and-ipfs-how-this-blog-works-and-scales.html https://withblue.ink/2019/03/20/hugo-and-ipfs-how-this-blog-... [2] - https://github.com/peer-base/peer-base https://github.com/peer-base/peer-base
tphan 6y ago
I am not a fan of Material UI (and especially the Material UI library for React). It looks kinda gross and it's really difficult to customise. Also, you've made a very common mistake of setting `outline: none` to your focus states! Very bad for people who navigate using a keyboard. Good job on launching, by the way.
- mattpearl 6y ago
  We have plenty of improvements we want to make to the app. This is only version 1.0 Appreciate it!!
  - gnarbarian 6y ago
    Your app is great don't listen to that guy. Who browses with a keyboard? only him.
    - pssdbt 6y ago
      I agree with both of you actually, app is great but I don't don't like Material when I see it usually unless it's skinned well enough to not instantly tell it's Material. Something about that default theme...
    - freeone3000 6y ago
      People with limited mouse dexterity. People who hate mice. If you don't browse with the keyboard you don't see the focus state move anyway, so leave it on for people who need it.
      - jiofih 6y ago
        I think this website is aimed at mobile users?
    - shakna 6y ago
      > Who browses with a keyboard? only him. Many accessibility systems work by emulating keyboard movements.
enos_feedler 6y ago
> "This caused app stores to turn into a series of ads and in app purchases." Right, because the core technology PWA is based on, the web, hasn't been tainted with ads.
- wyqydsyq 6y ago
  How has the web been tainted with ads? Many sites people have put on the web based on their business decisions are, sure. But that doesn't mean the core technology has been fundamentally tainted, any business not operating on a model of generating revenue from passive views generally doesn't display ads on their sites/in their products.
  - FridgeSeal 6y ago
    > How has the web been tainted with ads? * https://www.superhighway98.com/seo https://www.superhighway98.com/seo * http://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html http://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04 * https://voxeu.org/article/advertising-major-source-human-dissatisfaction https://voxeu.org/article/advertising-major-source-human-dis... * https://www.forbrukerradet.no/side/new-study-the-advertising-industry-is-systematically-breaking-the-law/ https://www.forbrukerradet.no/side/new-study-the-advertising... * https://danielmiessler.com/blog/google-amp-not-good-thing/ https://danielmiessler.com/blog/google-amp-not-good-thing/ * https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/19/open_source_insider_google_amp_bad_bad_bad/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/19/open_source_insider... The worlds largest advertising company is well known for abusing its position to push technological features and standards that benefit it-even if nobody else does-suppress and hinder competitors and aggressively and continuously trying to erode the open web. Next up, Facebook is notorious for similarly attempting to subvert and erode the open web, whilst simultaneously invading your privacy and using you as psychological lab-rats.
  - enos_feedler 6y ago
    I am saying the drive for revenue and the programming model of the web have created an abuse vector for user experience. That's all. We know it's true because platforms that have grown dominant on the web (indexing it, for instance) have to build scores and filters as a layer to protect the user from this. AMP is another example of investing in the protection of users. If it hand't been tainted, the user experience wouldn't need this level of protection from it.
aidenn0 6y ago
Is there a reason I can't middle click on a game and have it open in a new tab/window?
- Seb-C 6y ago
  I tried exactly the same thing and then left frustrated. This seems to be exclusively optimized on mobile devices, and is not even properly responsive. A progressive web app should be usable both as an app and in a browser. This is not the case here.
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    Yup, cells like that should be a link, and if it's a client-side router it should still not take over from basic browser functionality.
johnny_reilly 6y ago
I love PWAs. I'd be really curious to know if anyone could point to some good examples of PWAs doing biometric authentication using facial recognition / fingerprint. I don't actually know if it's possible using standard APIs that work on iPhone and Android
- simonmales 6y ago
  I played with this when it game out. At least the demo worked. https://webauthndemo.appspot.com/ https://webauthndemo.appspot.com/
- monocasa 6y ago
  You can probably get there most of the time with WebAuthn and specifying a platform authenticator. You can probably implement facial recognition yourself as well.
hneyman 6y ago
The Apps I've tried don't seem to work offline on iOS after saving to home screen. Does iOS support offline use of PWAs? (Or perhaps this is an issue with my phone... anyone able to reproduce, or find an App that does work offline?) Steps: Open App, enable airplane mode, go to iPhone home screen, open the App again, App is unresponsive. Apps I tried: https://progressiveapp.store/pwa/219 https://progressiveapp.store/pwa/219 and https://progressiveapp.store/pwa/87 https://progressiveapp.store/pwa/87 EDIT: Might be a bug: https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/issues/8889 https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/issues/8889
soared 6y ago
Awesome idea! I would reccomend seeding this with the pwa version of very popular apps. If you want to grow this you’ll need to expand beyond people who know or even care what a pwa is. The easiest way is just to convert people from using an app they use now to using the pwa. Think about a random nontechnical Facebook user - How would they get their feet wet? Likely by opening the pwa of Facebook, realizing it’s pretty solid, and trying new ones after that. (I’m not saying Facebook is a good example, just the audience you might think about). I’d definitely be into helping out with marketing strategy, lmk if you need advice or an extra hand.
aabbcc1241 6y ago
Like this demo. Btw, PWA can still contain purchases or ads
scriptstar 6y ago
Nice interface. What stack did you use to build your site? Any links to your repository, please? Many thanks.
toohotatopic 6y ago
Do you have categories?
gorgoiler 6y ago
For launch, it would be good to hide unfinished apps. The hn app is fast and slick, for example, but it doesn’t have comment collapse which is a major omission.
karambir 6y ago
Awesome collection! One thing I am always curious about, the right click and open in new tab does not work on the list items. I have seen this on many recent JS heavy web applications. Is this normal for PWAs to not support traditional browser interaction points? I can understand PWA wants to be more than just a web page and have their own UX. I have more experience in Backend software development and right now leading a small web/mobile/devops team, and always stress to not override browser controls unless absolutely necessary. Somewhat similar thing happens with scrolling. I feel most of the JS overridden scrolling is not needed.
- lucasverra 6y ago
  As a pwa maker, your point hit the nail on the head. In pwa we have w & a For the app part, ux generally does not allow you to right click or pinch & zoom. For the web part, it does. The best compromise is media queries and have some ux for mobile and another for desktop. From a business point of view, im not sure final user will value that investment
  - CapsAdmin 6y ago
    You can long press on links on mobile to open the right click menu so you can then open a link in a new tab. :) On iOS you even get a preview window with the links' content when using Safari. But I assume few people do this, so your last point applies.
- CapsAdmin 6y ago
  They would need to set the href attribute that points to the url on the card. After doing that you need to prevent the browser from actually going to that url when clicking on the card to prevent a full page refresh. I think this happens a lot nowadays because we create and style div elements from scratch while also hooking onto more fundamental events and preventing any browser behavior.
  - dragonshed 6y ago
    When building webapps I like to keep a list of nit picks for ux and usability issues (usually things I find myself that aren't directly related to feature stories) and I fight to schedule as many passes as possible for fixing them. It tends to be difficult because no one besides artists and ux engineers will want to prioritize/pay-for them. I will also sneak in a pass when I finish something that unexpectedly takes less points to finish.
saifsadiq1995 6y ago
Great collection!!
tylordurden 6y ago
site not opening in the edge browser.
rlv-dan 6y ago
Does not work in Pale Moon browser (blank screen, JS errors)
- phoenixdblack 6y ago
  Thats pretty unsurprising seeing as Pale Moon is not on-par with the standards and actively trying to not keep up, but instead seem to focus on keep support with legacy tech Mozilla removed quite a while ago. Also they actively disabled service workers, the very tech that enables PWAs in the first place
hising 6y ago
Great work. Found some gems there.
_Chief 6y ago
Any reason Github OAuth needs permissions like Resources and Actions for login?
dgellow 6y ago
Let’s say I create a progressive web app. What are the options to monetize it? I see that this PWA store specifies that a progressive Web app is free. For the concept to go beyond hobbyists, shouldn’t we sell a different story, like one where indie developers can make a living by creating and selling their applications? Mobile app stores have a lot of issues but you can develop a sustainable business there. I have multiple progressive web application that I’m currently working on and I’m struggling a bit with that point.
- blauditore 6y ago
  PWA are websites. So you should look for monetization concepts people are using on websites (ads, subscriptions, donation buttons).
- wyqydsyq 6y ago
  I think most PWAs are essentially front-end clients to a SaaS, so revenue typically comes from user subscriptions. Other than that like another user mentioned there's any monetization methods on the web at your disposal (advertising, microtransactions, donations etc) it really comes down to what business model you want to operate on and what seems most natural for users of your product. As far as a "buy it, you own the copy" model like with traditional media software and games go I don't think there is anything universal to use, most developers would implement their own licensing in their billing/accounts layer and expose a serial key or something that local data gets encrypted with as a rudimentary DRM, so the app can only be used later by having the right serial key (whether from LocalStorage/cache/a fresh login) for that paid user to decrypt and use their local data. It would be interesting if some service like PWA Store were to offer some kind of universal DRM to developers wanting to sell offline PWAs on a one-off sale format that they can easily wrap their app bundle in
- z3t4 6y ago
  The most common business model is freemium, where you funnel users to become paying users of another product of yours, or users can upgrade to a more advanced paid version. Then there's ads. Asking for a payment upfront for a web app will be though. You might remember demos or shareware? Think like that, you give away a free demo, if the user likes it, they will pay for more. There's one big problem though, if the freemium model doesn't work...
MegaLeon 6y ago
I have been wondering, since PWA are sandboxed and all, would it be possible to save a "snapshot" of it and be able to run it even if the original website/app went offline?
- RupertWiser 6y ago
  That’s left entirely to the developer to decide. You can intercept your network requests with a service worker and decide what to do from there [1]. [1] https://livebook.manning.com/book/progressive-web-apps/chapter-4/2 https://livebook.manning.com/book/progressive-web-apps/chapt...
hawski 6y ago
I like the idea, but taking UX ideas from Android or iOS app stores leads only to frustration. For now there are only a couple of screens worth of apps, so it's not a problem. Search is quite useless. It seems to only display list of matching names. So I can't even search for "game". It does not filter. I think the UX is supposed to encourage experimentation, but I always find it daunting whenever I try to find an app for something. There is this bunch of huge icons, not enteirly clear names or just straight up deceiving ones and a rating. To get to even a slight neutral description what the thing is one has to tap in, many times also dive deep in description just to have an idea what the thing is trying to be. I guess with web platform it may be easier than normal apps, also I feel I must trust an app much more to install it, but this gives me the same vibes. A channel of spewed icons and mostly unhelpful names. Sorry if it sounds harsh, I just can't stand how useless Play Store is at finding things.
jtvjan 6y ago
Your icon has those stripes on it that you usually see in previews for stock icons. Are you sure you have permission to use it? (it appears to be from "Shopping Set 4" by 13ree)
kevincox 6y ago
This site doesn't use links so it is very frustrating to use. I was trying to middle click to open new tabs but it didn't work because they aren't <a> tags.
- pier25 6y ago
  Sadly that's a common problem with single-page apps and modern web front end. It's trivial to implement but many devs don't pay attention to those things.
  - kevincox 6y ago
    People underestimate the value in functionality and consistency that native interfaces provide. It is also partially the web's fault. There isn't an easy way to detect an "in-page" navigation. The best solution I am aware of is: 1. Add global "click" listener. 2. Check that the click target was an `a` tag. 3. Check that the click was a single left click with no modifiers. 4. Check that the `href` points to a page that you can render. 5. Call event.preventDefault() and handle the navigation yourself. But step 3 isn't even sufficient as people can configure their browsers to open all links in new windows or tabs.
    - pier25 6y ago
      > But step 3 isn't even sufficient as people can configure their browsers to open all links in new windows or tabs. You know many people that do that? I do that for search results and Reddit but I don't want that behavior for all websites.
      - kevincox 6y ago
        I don't know about many but I do something similar. I make all links open in the same tab. Then if I want another tab I can middle click. This way I can decide where links open, not the website owner.
- quambene 6y ago
  And even more importantly, external content should always be a link instead of a button. If it's a button, you can't see where you are going which is a poor user experience and security issue. Other than that, neat idea.
deleted 6y ago
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IvanK_net 6y ago
I did a similar thing back in 2012 :) but it was only for web games, which run without plugins. Authors of games submit the name of a game, the URL of the game, and the URL of a thumbnail (similar to a PWA manifest). There is a "gallery" - a store of games. But most importantly, manifests are available as a JSON feed, which anybody can use. It is at http://www.spreadmygame.com/ http://www.spreadmygame.com/
- z3t4 6y ago
  You shouldn't open sites in an iframe. Just take the user directly to the game/page. You can still monetize with ads, like Google does.
  - IvanK_net 6y ago
    My idea was, that both the author and a publisher would monetize it.
tyingq 6y ago
Very nice. Is there any automated validation that submissions are truly "PWA", work offline, etc?
- mrcoffee4u 6y ago
  checkout Lighthouse, its build into the Chrome dev tools
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
joelellis 6y ago
Hi, I've always loved these PWA stores. I just updated the https://offline-dino-game.firebaseapp.com/ https://offline-dino-game.firebaseapp.com/ PWA with the ability to save your highscore to localstorage! Took me long enough...
annajamey 6y ago
That is great to read this news online. We can not go anywhere now as COVID-19. So many people are surging dating game, especially apps, such as Tinder, Bumble, Yumi and Meetme.

402 points by mattpearl 6y ago

Neat site, but the "Why PWA's?" section is laughable. > FREE to install > HTTPS is required meaning you data is secure > Takes up less storage on your phone. No need to pay extra money for higher storage > No in app purchases or ads. Just a clean and simple app experience > Has an offline mode. Apps can be used in areas where this is no internet connection All of them are either misleading or completely wrong. The comparison randomly switches from websites to phone apps whenever convenient. It would be a lot better to provide a more objective description of what PWAs even are.

atupis 6y ago
Agree had no clue what is pwa until I started reading comments here.
SimeVidas 6y ago
The number one reason to choose PWA over native is performance.
- sk0g 6y ago
  If performance means performantly hogging resources performing the most basic of task, then sure.
- jamil7 6y ago
  Could you elaborate on that? Performance of what exactly?
  - bryanrasmussen 6y ago
    It must be performance of your developers being able to develop for one codebase.
  - SimeVidas 6y ago
    Loading times and responsiveness. For example, Twitter’s native iOS app is about 115 MB, while their PWA is a tiny fraction of that, probably not more than a few MB. This unsurprisingly reflects on performance.
    - jamil7 6y ago
      Wow thats huge. I haven't used twitter in years, I wonder if it was always so bloated.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- pssdbt 6y ago
  That's the reason to choose PWA over other web technologies, not native.
  - http-teapot 6y ago
    What other technologies?
    - twicetwice 6y ago
      I'm assuming they're talking about a standard SPA (or even a conventional full-page-reload web app), or React Native or Electron on the desktop or similar. In the former case, a PWA can use service workers and caching and so on to get better network performance. In the latter case, they can leverage a preexisting Chromium/other browser instance to get most of the advantages of "write once, run everywhere" without bundling a whole browser instance with your app. I can't wait for full PWA support in Firefox, especially on desktop!
- colordrops 6y ago
  No way are they more performant than native apps. Their big advantages are write once run anywhere, no vendor lock in, easier install, and more control, privacy and sandboxing since they are web apps.
enos_feedler 6y ago
The whole idea of debating PWA and native apps is really old. I wish Google would just come out and say "we tried this idea, it wasn't the right one, we're sorry, PWAs are dead." Until this happens this idea will never die. Google is happy to kill good products but won't kill terrible ideas!
- Kiro 6y ago
  How is it terrible?
  - Kiro 6y ago
    Apparently a controversial question considering the downvotes. PWAs are not AMP or some proprietary technology. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_application https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_application I don't see how it is a terrible idea that needs to be killed. Sounds like a technological regression if support were to be removed. It's not like you're not allowed to still build native apps so please make me understand this argument.
    - enos_feedler 6y ago
      Hard to say whether the down votes are because of my attitude or the true belief that PWAs are a viable alternative that should be weighed against native apps. And yes, I am advocating for a technical regression. I think the web platform has pushed things unnecessarily too far because it cared more about competing with apps then embracing what the web is good for. If you want proof this is true, look no further than technologies such as AMP that trade away the general usage of these advanced web technologies for something the end user actually wants: a good user experience. You could also look at the numerous native apps that have mini apps and games that are developed using web technologies. If the web platform delivered features developers needed, these mini experiences could run in embedded web controllers. Instead they are custom webviews with hooks into the native platform to bridge the gap to what developers actually need.

franciscop 6y ago

Interesting, and congratulations on launching the site! How do you plan on growing and generating demand? I starting making exactly this back in 2018 but didn't get people interested back then so I dropped it and let the domain expire, see the original (seems broken though): https://web.archive.org/web/20180901171627/http://web-app.store/ https://web.archive.org/web/20180901171627/http://web-app.st... It was my first time using a skeleton in CSS and using a Google Form as the way to submit a new app (with the spreadsheet as the database). I believe it was also my first PWA but I'm not 100% sure about that. While I learned a lot, some times I regret not having followed through, will keep an eye on https://progressiveapp.store/ https://progressiveapp.store/ to see how it goes.

mattpearl 6y ago
well I really just love PWA's and the freedom it brings to the developers and wanted to create a store to help show their potential. Appreciate it!
- aabbcc1241 6y ago
  PWA is definitely great for developers and users. But I often see users asking for native apps even when they're using PWA at hand. They say "It's more convenience to have app version".
  - julianwachholz 6y ago
    I'd argue that many people wouldn't know wether they were looking at a PWA or a native application written in a JS container format (like react-native). I can't think of a way that native apps are more convenient? With automatic updates it's even less convenient to have the updates go through the app store.
    - aabbcc1241 6y ago
      They may not distinct visually, but iPhone user without chrome can definitely tell. I totally agree with you, I developed a PWA and 'native app' which is mostly an webview of the same content. I often use the PWA version but it seems most (if not all) of my users are using the app version even when the app stores approve updates in a notifiable slower rate. My native app do used some native plugin, but those functions are not often used by the users. So I feel they just blindly ask for apps. Maybe they think native app loads faster than PWA? People don't want to wait for a SPA first-time loading but they won't blame the download and install time of native apps.

sdan 6y ago

Played the dino game, reminds me of elementary school. Pretty neat!

mattpearl 6y ago
glad you enjoyed the ad free gaming experience!

blkhp19 6y ago

I hate to say it but this just demonstrates, all in one place, how far behind PWAs are from native apps. Does anyone have an example of a PWA (hosted here or elsewhere) that rivals the best apps seen in native app stores? I’m talking about beautiful animations, native-feeling navigation, and an overall immersive, cohesive experience?

mattpearl 6y ago
PWA's have room to grow but have a lot of benefits over native apps
- Nicksil 6y ago
  >PWA's have room to grow but have a lot of benefits over native apps Just gonna leave us hangin'?
  - p1necone 6y ago
    Biggest thing for me would be instant installs and no/much less space taken on local storage.
    - buzzerbetrayed 6y ago
      In addition: not having to install at all to be able to try it out.
    - fidelramos 6y ago
      Most important thing for me is sandboxing, no abuse of the device's data and sensors. I hate how most native apps invade your privacy.
      - Nicksil 6y ago
        >Most important thing for me is sandboxing, no abuse of the device's data and sensors. I hate how most native apps invade your privacy. User abuse is rampant on the Web. For example, those APIs you mention are used to fingerprint machines. If you're genuinely concerned with abuse of privacy, you'd do yourself a huge favor by researching the history and current mechanisms for such abuse by websites and, by extension, PWAs.

wyxuan 6y ago

The tower game was really good and if you told me it was a pwa I would've been blown away

kevincox 6y ago
https://www.towergame.app/ https://www.towergame.app/
pier25 6y ago
What engine does it use? Pixi / Phaser?

su 6y ago

Congratulations on the launch. I have been lately working with lot of clients who want PWA's and I have found https://appsco.pe/ https://appsco.pe/ to be one of the nicest PWA gallery.

satyrnein 6y ago
What motivates them to want PWAs, out of curiosity? Usually interest seems to come from developers.
- kevincox 6y ago
  I like websites more than apps for a couple of reasons: - Better isolation from my device. I don't worry about them sucking up information I don't want them to have. - I can share links to my friends (if the website has good URLs of course) - I can use it on every device. I don't need to worry if it has an Android App and website, I can just use the website on both. - I can use the same app as my friends no matter what phone they use.
- rchaud 6y ago
  The motivation can come from privacy-conscious users as well. I use the Uber PWA (m.uber.com) instead of the app because I can control the permissions it has if it runs in the browser. While you can control permissions in the native app as well, they get switched back to their defaults each time an app update is installed.
z3t4 6y ago
I submitted one of my PWA's on appsco.pe 8 month ago and it has not yet been added. So I guess it's not actively maintained!?

GoodDreams 6y ago

Is there a simple way to charge for a monthly PWA subscription without coding a backend to handle the various subscription use cases and without providing a complicated UI to subscribers?

paxys 6y ago
Well it depends on how "simple" you want it to be, but services have Stripe have pretty comprehensive solutions.
- GoodDreams 6y ago
  My understanding is that Stripe offers UI to sign up for a subscription, but then offers only an API for other subscription actions such as changing from monthly to yearly or cancelling. Someone have a link describing Stripe's comprehensive UI for subscriptions?
jamil7 6y ago
I believe on Android there is some deeper integration with google pay. I’m on mobile so I can’t find a link right now.

kgraves 6y ago

How is the push notification story with PWA’s?

mattpearl 6y ago
On android and desktop notifications work well. We use push notifications to inform users when their PWA is approved. IOS it is still not supported yet but should be soon

jedberg 6y ago

I'm on Safari and I clicked through to the HN app, and was basically presented with a blank page with some headings: https://imgur.com/a/jqUw5Gl https://imgur.com/a/jqUw5Gl I assume this isn't what it should look like. Sorry about the bug report here, I couldn't find any contact link.

mattpearl 6y ago
contact is at the bottom of the About page. Appreciate the bug report! will look into it
robarr 6y ago
You have to launch it pressing the free button.

rileytg 6y ago

what are your thoughts on recent news apple is removing functionality important to PWAs?

mattpearl 6y ago
Heard about it, but that only applies when PWA's are running in the browser. When installed on the home screen it will not have an effect
- cstrat 6y ago
  Oh I missed that bit? That is good to hear.
mattpearl 6y ago
apple is lagging behind on PWA support but PWA's are definitely coming either way. the reason why apple is lagging on support is because it will take a significant hit on their app store revenues as PWA's remove having to go throw third parties such as apple
- FridgeSeal 6y ago
  Why would I use a PWA over a native so if I had the choice though?
  - paxys 6y ago
    Well if the PWA experience is good enough then some developers aren't going to list their apps in the app store at all so they can bypass Apple's revenue cut. PWAs also have less access in general and so are more secure/sandboxed.
    - mattpearl 6y ago
      ^ exactly and when there are big benefits to developers like that and the technology is focused on more, the maturity of what it will become is what really excites me

RyanShook 6y ago

I held out hope for PWAs for so long but I think React Native has won.

mattpearl 6y ago
React Native may have won some battles but not yet the war ;]
paxys 6y ago
No one has "won". The vast majority of phone apps are still written using native code and frameworks, and that will be the case for the foreseeable future.
- smbullet 6y ago
  PWA's aren't for developers with the time and resources to build native apps. It's for web developers who want to improve the mobile experience on their sites.
  - paxys 6y ago
    > It's for web developers who want to improve the mobile experience on their sites Then they wouldn't be using React Native in the first place
  - esprehn 6y ago
    Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok all have PWAs, plus many more well funded businesses.
sevencolors 6y ago
This comment won’t age well :)

fermienrico 6y ago

This is further regression from UI consistency, with no supervision, now on Desktop. Every javascript developer has their own way of doing UI, often a hodgepodge of framework libraries mashed up to make it work. IMO, the entire world has regressed into chaos when it comes to design and UI. Democratic design choices and process is far inferior to dictatorial approach we had going in 90's and into 2000's (See 98.css recently posted: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22940564 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22940564). Let everyone run loose and we all lose. Yes, it was painful to develop applications using native UI elements but those apps provide a fantastic, consistent UI experience. In addition, the entire Javascript ecosystem is rotten with horrible bloat built atop more bloat by many inexperienced software engineers - sorry, I don't meant to insult anyone but this is a factual observation from my own experience of developing on React and Angular. When a website that's serving trivial content is hogging so much CPU, it is time to refactor everything. It is actually time to refactor what we see as a modern browser.

jamil7 6y ago
> Yes, it was painful to develop applications using native UI I actually think it’s getting easier. Android and iOS are both offering quick, modern ways of building UIs with there upcoming UI frameworks thats IMO far less work than the web where things have to often be built from scratch or from some third party that will abandon it.
- oaiey 6y ago
  I think the issue is the following: In the 90s there was exactly two vendors with reasonable user base and design philosophies (Microsoft and Apple). And even they had a similar behavior. With the advent of web application we ignored it for a while (it is just a window with some strange stuff in it). However, with the mobile platforms (Android, iOS), bootstrap framework and the rise of strict user interface guideline by mega companies (like Google Material Design), the number of UX styles literally exploded. I try to enumerate them, but the web is full of variants. As a dream, we should consolidate to device factors: Desktop, Mobile, Watch and Interactive. But Apple, Microsoft and Google are not on the same page here ;) If they would, magic could happen.

atupis 6y ago

Could you build PWA top of IPFS or something similar and create decentralized apps.

riyakhanna1983 6y ago
Out of curiosity, what advantage would that provide?
- atupis 6y ago
  1.fault tolerance 2. scalable and 3. would be a pretty cool and novel concept.
fidelramos 6y ago
I don't see why it wouldn't be possible, there are already working websites on IPFS. I think we will see more as IPFS support in browsers increase. Opera launched native integration for IPFS weeks ago, hopefully Firefox and Chrome will follow at some point.
jka 6y ago
It's possible that both the hosting[1] of apps and also inter-app communication[2] would be possible via IPFS. Orchestration of the resources (CPU, memory, storage) to run API services would also be possible in a distribution manner if we can envision something like Kubernetes to manage workload allocation across compute hardware (smartphones?) and if there's a way for participating nodes to obtain container images and storage volumes (IPFS / Tahoe-LAFS?). Signing and trust would still be an issue, particularly for container images and storage volumes. [1] - https://withblue.ink/2019/03/20/hugo-and-ipfs-how-this-blog-works-and-scales.html https://withblue.ink/2019/03/20/hugo-and-ipfs-how-this-blog-... [2] - https://github.com/peer-base/peer-base https://github.com/peer-base/peer-base

tphan 6y ago

I am not a fan of Material UI (and especially the Material UI library for React). It looks kinda gross and it's really difficult to customise. Also, you've made a very common mistake of setting `outline: none` to your focus states! Very bad for people who navigate using a keyboard. Good job on launching, by the way.

mattpearl 6y ago
We have plenty of improvements we want to make to the app. This is only version 1.0 Appreciate it!!
- gnarbarian 6y ago
  Your app is great don't listen to that guy. Who browses with a keyboard? only him.
  - pssdbt 6y ago
    I agree with both of you actually, app is great but I don't don't like Material when I see it usually unless it's skinned well enough to not instantly tell it's Material. Something about that default theme...
  - freeone3000 6y ago
    People with limited mouse dexterity. People who hate mice. If you don't browse with the keyboard you don't see the focus state move anyway, so leave it on for people who need it.
    - jiofih 6y ago
      I think this website is aimed at mobile users?
  - shakna 6y ago
    > Who browses with a keyboard? only him. Many accessibility systems work by emulating keyboard movements.

enos_feedler 6y ago

> "This caused app stores to turn into a series of ads and in app purchases." Right, because the core technology PWA is based on, the web, hasn't been tainted with ads.

wyqydsyq 6y ago
How has the web been tainted with ads? Many sites people have put on the web based on their business decisions are, sure. But that doesn't mean the core technology has been fundamentally tainted, any business not operating on a model of generating revenue from passive views generally doesn't display ads on their sites/in their products.
- FridgeSeal 6y ago
  > How has the web been tainted with ads? * https://www.superhighway98.com/seo https://www.superhighway98.com/seo * http://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html http://jacek.zlydach.pl/blog/2019-07-31-ads-as-cancer.html * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnPmg0R1M04 * https://voxeu.org/article/advertising-major-source-human-dissatisfaction https://voxeu.org/article/advertising-major-source-human-dis... * https://www.forbrukerradet.no/side/new-study-the-advertising-industry-is-systematically-breaking-the-law/ https://www.forbrukerradet.no/side/new-study-the-advertising... * https://danielmiessler.com/blog/google-amp-not-good-thing/ https://danielmiessler.com/blog/google-amp-not-good-thing/ * https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/19/open_source_insider_google_amp_bad_bad_bad/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/19/open_source_insider... The worlds largest advertising company is well known for abusing its position to push technological features and standards that benefit it-even if nobody else does-suppress and hinder competitors and aggressively and continuously trying to erode the open web. Next up, Facebook is notorious for similarly attempting to subvert and erode the open web, whilst simultaneously invading your privacy and using you as psychological lab-rats.
- enos_feedler 6y ago
  I am saying the drive for revenue and the programming model of the web have created an abuse vector for user experience. That's all. We know it's true because platforms that have grown dominant on the web (indexing it, for instance) have to build scores and filters as a layer to protect the user from this. AMP is another example of investing in the protection of users. If it hand't been tainted, the user experience wouldn't need this level of protection from it.

aidenn0 6y ago

Is there a reason I can't middle click on a game and have it open in a new tab/window?

Seb-C 6y ago
I tried exactly the same thing and then left frustrated. This seems to be exclusively optimized on mobile devices, and is not even properly responsive. A progressive web app should be usable both as an app and in a browser. This is not the case here.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Yup, cells like that should be a link, and if it's a client-side router it should still not take over from basic browser functionality.

johnny_reilly 6y ago

I love PWAs. I'd be really curious to know if anyone could point to some good examples of PWAs doing biometric authentication using facial recognition / fingerprint. I don't actually know if it's possible using standard APIs that work on iPhone and Android

simonmales 6y ago
I played with this when it game out. At least the demo worked. https://webauthndemo.appspot.com/ https://webauthndemo.appspot.com/
monocasa 6y ago
You can probably get there most of the time with WebAuthn and specifying a platform authenticator. You can probably implement facial recognition yourself as well.

hneyman 6y ago

The Apps I've tried don't seem to work offline on iOS after saving to home screen. Does iOS support offline use of PWAs? (Or perhaps this is an issue with my phone... anyone able to reproduce, or find an App that does work offline?) Steps: Open App, enable airplane mode, go to iPhone home screen, open the App again, App is unresponsive. Apps I tried: https://progressiveapp.store/pwa/219 https://progressiveapp.store/pwa/219 and https://progressiveapp.store/pwa/87 https://progressiveapp.store/pwa/87 EDIT: Might be a bug: https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/issues/8889 https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/issues/8889

soared 6y ago

Awesome idea! I would reccomend seeding this with the pwa version of very popular apps. If you want to grow this you’ll need to expand beyond people who know or even care what a pwa is. The easiest way is just to convert people from using an app they use now to using the pwa. Think about a random nontechnical Facebook user - How would they get their feet wet? Likely by opening the pwa of Facebook, realizing it’s pretty solid, and trying new ones after that. (I’m not saying Facebook is a good example, just the audience you might think about). I’d definitely be into helping out with marketing strategy, lmk if you need advice or an extra hand.

aabbcc1241 6y ago

Like this demo. Btw, PWA can still contain purchases or ads

scriptstar 6y ago

Nice interface. What stack did you use to build your site? Any links to your repository, please? Many thanks.

toohotatopic 6y ago

Do you have categories?

gorgoiler 6y ago

For launch, it would be good to hide unfinished apps. The hn app is fast and slick, for example, but it doesn’t have comment collapse which is a major omission.

karambir 6y ago

Awesome collection! One thing I am always curious about, the right click and open in new tab does not work on the list items. I have seen this on many recent JS heavy web applications. Is this normal for PWAs to not support traditional browser interaction points? I can understand PWA wants to be more than just a web page and have their own UX. I have more experience in Backend software development and right now leading a small web/mobile/devops team, and always stress to not override browser controls unless absolutely necessary. Somewhat similar thing happens with scrolling. I feel most of the JS overridden scrolling is not needed.

lucasverra 6y ago
As a pwa maker, your point hit the nail on the head. In pwa we have w & a For the app part, ux generally does not allow you to right click or pinch & zoom. For the web part, it does. The best compromise is media queries and have some ux for mobile and another for desktop. From a business point of view, im not sure final user will value that investment
- CapsAdmin 6y ago
  You can long press on links on mobile to open the right click menu so you can then open a link in a new tab. :) On iOS you even get a preview window with the links' content when using Safari. But I assume few people do this, so your last point applies.
CapsAdmin 6y ago
They would need to set the href attribute that points to the url on the card. After doing that you need to prevent the browser from actually going to that url when clicking on the card to prevent a full page refresh. I think this happens a lot nowadays because we create and style div elements from scratch while also hooking onto more fundamental events and preventing any browser behavior.
- dragonshed 6y ago
  When building webapps I like to keep a list of nit picks for ux and usability issues (usually things I find myself that aren't directly related to feature stories) and I fight to schedule as many passes as possible for fixing them. It tends to be difficult because no one besides artists and ux engineers will want to prioritize/pay-for them. I will also sneak in a pass when I finish something that unexpectedly takes less points to finish.

saifsadiq1995 6y ago

Great collection!!

tylordurden 6y ago

site not opening in the edge browser.

rlv-dan 6y ago

Does not work in Pale Moon browser (blank screen, JS errors)

phoenixdblack 6y ago
Thats pretty unsurprising seeing as Pale Moon is not on-par with the standards and actively trying to not keep up, but instead seem to focus on keep support with legacy tech Mozilla removed quite a while ago. Also they actively disabled service workers, the very tech that enables PWAs in the first place

hising 6y ago

Great work. Found some gems there.

_Chief 6y ago

Any reason Github OAuth needs permissions like Resources and Actions for login?

dgellow 6y ago

Let’s say I create a progressive web app. What are the options to monetize it? I see that this PWA store specifies that a progressive Web app is free. For the concept to go beyond hobbyists, shouldn’t we sell a different story, like one where indie developers can make a living by creating and selling their applications? Mobile app stores have a lot of issues but you can develop a sustainable business there. I have multiple progressive web application that I’m currently working on and I’m struggling a bit with that point.

blauditore 6y ago
PWA are websites. So you should look for monetization concepts people are using on websites (ads, subscriptions, donation buttons).
wyqydsyq 6y ago
I think most PWAs are essentially front-end clients to a SaaS, so revenue typically comes from user subscriptions. Other than that like another user mentioned there's any monetization methods on the web at your disposal (advertising, microtransactions, donations etc) it really comes down to what business model you want to operate on and what seems most natural for users of your product. As far as a "buy it, you own the copy" model like with traditional media software and games go I don't think there is anything universal to use, most developers would implement their own licensing in their billing/accounts layer and expose a serial key or something that local data gets encrypted with as a rudimentary DRM, so the app can only be used later by having the right serial key (whether from LocalStorage/cache/a fresh login) for that paid user to decrypt and use their local data. It would be interesting if some service like PWA Store were to offer some kind of universal DRM to developers wanting to sell offline PWAs on a one-off sale format that they can easily wrap their app bundle in
z3t4 6y ago
The most common business model is freemium, where you funnel users to become paying users of another product of yours, or users can upgrade to a more advanced paid version. Then there's ads. Asking for a payment upfront for a web app will be though. You might remember demos or shareware? Think like that, you give away a free demo, if the user likes it, they will pay for more. There's one big problem though, if the freemium model doesn't work...

MegaLeon 6y ago

I have been wondering, since PWA are sandboxed and all, would it be possible to save a "snapshot" of it and be able to run it even if the original website/app went offline?

RupertWiser 6y ago
That’s left entirely to the developer to decide. You can intercept your network requests with a service worker and decide what to do from there [1]. [1] https://livebook.manning.com/book/progressive-web-apps/chapter-4/2 https://livebook.manning.com/book/progressive-web-apps/chapt...

hawski 6y ago

I like the idea, but taking UX ideas from Android or iOS app stores leads only to frustration. For now there are only a couple of screens worth of apps, so it's not a problem. Search is quite useless. It seems to only display list of matching names. So I can't even search for "game". It does not filter. I think the UX is supposed to encourage experimentation, but I always find it daunting whenever I try to find an app for something. There is this bunch of huge icons, not enteirly clear names or just straight up deceiving ones and a rating. To get to even a slight neutral description what the thing is one has to tap in, many times also dive deep in description just to have an idea what the thing is trying to be. I guess with web platform it may be easier than normal apps, also I feel I must trust an app much more to install it, but this gives me the same vibes. A channel of spewed icons and mostly unhelpful names. Sorry if it sounds harsh, I just can't stand how useless Play Store is at finding things.

jtvjan 6y ago

Your icon has those stripes on it that you usually see in previews for stock icons. Are you sure you have permission to use it? (it appears to be from "Shopping Set 4" by 13ree)

kevincox 6y ago

This site doesn't use links so it is very frustrating to use. I was trying to middle click to open new tabs but it didn't work because they aren't <a> tags.

pier25 6y ago
Sadly that's a common problem with single-page apps and modern web front end. It's trivial to implement but many devs don't pay attention to those things.
- kevincox 6y ago
  People underestimate the value in functionality and consistency that native interfaces provide. It is also partially the web's fault. There isn't an easy way to detect an "in-page" navigation. The best solution I am aware of is: 1. Add global "click" listener. 2. Check that the click target was an `a` tag. 3. Check that the click was a single left click with no modifiers. 4. Check that the `href` points to a page that you can render. 5. Call event.preventDefault() and handle the navigation yourself. But step 3 isn't even sufficient as people can configure their browsers to open all links in new windows or tabs.
  - pier25 6y ago
    > But step 3 isn't even sufficient as people can configure their browsers to open all links in new windows or tabs. You know many people that do that? I do that for search results and Reddit but I don't want that behavior for all websites.
    - kevincox 6y ago
      I don't know about many but I do something similar. I make all links open in the same tab. Then if I want another tab I can middle click. This way I can decide where links open, not the website owner.
quambene 6y ago
And even more importantly, external content should always be a link instead of a button. If it's a button, you can't see where you are going which is a poor user experience and security issue. Other than that, neat idea.

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IvanK_net 6y ago

I did a similar thing back in 2012 :) but it was only for web games, which run without plugins. Authors of games submit the name of a game, the URL of the game, and the URL of a thumbnail (similar to a PWA manifest). There is a "gallery" - a store of games. But most importantly, manifests are available as a JSON feed, which anybody can use. It is at http://www.spreadmygame.com/ http://www.spreadmygame.com/

z3t4 6y ago
You shouldn't open sites in an iframe. Just take the user directly to the game/page. You can still monetize with ads, like Google does.
- IvanK_net 6y ago
  My idea was, that both the author and a publisher would monetize it.

tyingq 6y ago

Very nice. Is there any automated validation that submissions are truly "PWA", work offline, etc?

mrcoffee4u 6y ago
checkout Lighthouse, its build into the Chrome dev tools

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joelellis 6y ago

Hi, I've always loved these PWA stores. I just updated the https://offline-dino-game.firebaseapp.com/ https://offline-dino-game.firebaseapp.com/ PWA with the ability to save your highscore to localstorage! Took me long enough...

annajamey 6y ago

That is great to read this news online. We can not go anywhere now as COVID-19. So many people are surging dating game, especially apps, such as Tinder, Bumble, Yumi and Meetme.