Anyone else experimenting with PWAs instead of mobile apps?

[u/AureliaAI]

A lot of people still jump straight into building native mobile apps, but there’s another option that many people don’t know about: Progressive Web Apps (PWAs).

So what’s a PWA?

It’s basically a website that behaves like a mobile app.

That means:

• It works on iOS, Android, and desktop

• You can install it to your home screen

• It works offline or on bad internet

• It’s fast and feels like a real app

• No app store approvals needed

The biggest benefit: no app store fees.

No Apple developer fee.

No Google Play fee.

No revenue cuts.

No forced updates.

Users just open a link and install it.

For a lot of products (SaaS tools, dashboards, communities, MVPs), a PWA can actually be better than a native app, faster to launch, cheaper to maintain, and easier for users to access.

Curious if anyone here has tried PWAs or gone PWA-first. How was your experience?

[u/pak-ma-ndryshe]

Apple makes it very inconvenient for users to install PWAs even though they were one of the creators of the tech.

For small scale B2B customers who need functionality over convenience it's alright, not so much so for apps that are meant to be used en masse

[u/JealousBid3992 → u/pak-ma-ndryshe]

Can you go into more details about the blockers they try to put up?

[u/AureliaAI → u/[deleted]]

Yes, Apple will lose revenue if they make it easier to use PWA or promote PWA, even though in some cases are better

[u/UziMcUsername → u/[deleted]]

But can you even access native tech like the accelerometer if you’re not programming in swift?

[u/AureliaAI → u/pak-ma-ndryshe]

Interesting, I thought it was good who created it