As a software development company, Vilmate is constantly expanding and strengthening its technology stack. Recently, its complexity has grown to include Progressive Web Apps. PWAs have proved to be an advantageous technical solution, so driven by the pursuit of novel technologies, we have decided to get started with Progressive Web Application development, too.
Progressive Web Applications exemplify the way advanced web technologies can work. They allow businesses to improve the experience delivered to users of both mobile and desktop devices. As a result, users get a web application that acts like a native app and businesses hone in on retention.
The world’s IT leaders embraced PWAs and offer support for them. Importantly, Microsoft (Edge), Apple (Safari), and last but not least Google (Chrome) provide ongoing maintenance to Progressive Web Apps.
It was Steve Jobs, the founding father of the Digital Revolution, who suggested the concept of Web apps that could be used through the Apple device’s mobile web browser, Safari. But eventually, Google turned out to be the first to officially introduce the term, spearhead an open standard for PWA, and promote PWA development. The update announced by Jobs in 2007 was not to be implemented. Instead, Google in 2015 started promoting PWA technologies to become and remain their strongest supporter.
For development teams, choosing to build Progressive Web Apps means deriving benefits that include the following:
PWAs are built by front-end web developers with JavaScript, CSS, and HTML. That is, there is no need to hire both Android and iOS mobile developers. Instead, a level of performance and usability, nearly identical to native apps, is ensured by the efforts of a web development team. Multi-platform in its nature, a PWA has one code base, which means there is bound to be an increase in development speed. Besides, nearly all the modern frameworks comprise the tools for PWA development and there is the open availability of community support in the form of third-party libraries.
No matter what platform a Progressive Web App is running on, it will look the same and remain familiar to users on Android, iOS or Windows devices. Moreover, PWA philosophy allows not only for consistency in UX design but also for flexibility in building UI. Google, Apple and Microsoft style guides rather give recommendations than impose restrictions. As a result, the end product is much more likely to fully meet the client’s requirements.
Since a PWA is a web app, developers do not need to roll out app releases and publish their apps on the App Store or Google Play. However, there are still a number of ways to make your app available and installable straight from the store. So, either wrapped into a host native app or as a standalone product, a PWA remains evergreen. It is rendered by the user's browser, which means that the PWA users are always up to date.
Not only are PWAs beneficial in terms of the ease of development and distribution, but they possess a number of advantages to offer to businesses, some of which are:
A PWA can be installed to the home screen directly from the browser, so there is always a reminder of an app when a phone is used. In most cases, a great driver of user re-engagement is a generally good performance of Progressive Web Apps. They are consistently interactive, page load performance is great and they demonstrate relatively short response time and low input lag.
Thus, a year after the beginning of the Pinterest PWA development, they have user engagement increased by 60%. Besides, the loading time of an app has been decreased with Time To Interactive reduced from 23s to 5.6s. So, adopting PWA technologies has become a positive experience for the company. Moreover, not only is there a web app install prompt that allows running it like any other installed app but also if you have both a native application and a respective PWA, the latter can be used to advertise the former by means of adding a native app install prompt.
Faster loading time is, in fact, the source of many other benefits, for content that can be reached quickly is likely to be viewed by a larger audience. Data can be cached and easily delivered to users, which helps optimize the app’s performance.
From a business perspective, Progressive Web Apps are also more economical. They are faster to build and update. So, you create one version of the app and instead of paying for several native apps, you pay for one that naturally costs less to develop than a native mobile app.
Push notifications, installability, and offline access do not provide a complete picture of the PWA capabilities. The list can be extended to include the following:
Instantly accessible from home screen. They increase convenience as users can keep apps they frequently use on their home screen.
Fast and responsive. They enable seamless responses to user interactions, meaning that PWAs are responsive across all the phone, tablet and desktop screen sizes.
Stable and secure. They increase mobile website reliability and ensure security since they are served via HTTPS.
Search engine optimized. Not only are PWAs discoverable via search engines, but their pages also load instantly due to pre-caching offering users a quick and simple user experience. That is important from the SEO point of view, since search engines like Google rank websites based on the page loading time. Thus, PWAs can be easier to find than regular websites.
Working across different platforms. They engage users on all browsers and devices being supported on most modern operating systems, including Chrome OS, Mac, and Windows.
Accessible via all browsers. They eliminate the obstacles of a complex installation and therefore are easy to use. Besides, if some PWA feature is not supported on the used platform, an app will work anyway.
Easily sharable via a URL.
Lightweight. As a rule, the size of a PWA is measured in kilobytes, while native applications can weigh hundreds of megabytes. Not to mention that a user does not have to spend extra time visiting an app store.
Being a new philosophy for building web apps, PWAs are created with the whole set of technologies. Vilmate, as a Progressive Web App development company, is eager to discover new ways of unfolding technology capabilities. Our engineers are constantly sharpening their technical skills to be able to deliver quality apps and provide great Progressive Web App development and PWA consulting services.
Our development team created a Progressive Web App for GetCompliant, our strong long-term client, and we also have at present more PWA projects underway.
Progressive Web App development
Adding and configuring a Web App Manifest conveying the information about the app
Building, registering, and programming Service Workers to return the cached versions of assets
The use of application shell architecture for effective offline caching and PWA performance optimization
Setting up Trusted Web Activities for web content integration
Application deployment, stabilization, and ongoing maintenance
We have accumulated a wealth of
experience in implementing complex
solutions for a range of verticals and business niches.
Vilmate has a stellar track record
of helping startups in several business
niches develop mission-critical solutions.
Our client roster comprises
of more than 50 North-American and
Western-European clients.
Our software engineers are well-versed in modern web development practices and various technologies that allow building Progressive Web Apps.
If you have a project to be implemented as a PWA, Vilmate can become your reliable and well-seasoned partner. Our PWA development services are high-quality and moderately priced. So, with Vilmate, you will have all your needs met.
eCommerce and Social Commerce
Retail applications and financial systems
Interactive media applications and entertainment portals
Interest-based communities and Social Networking applications
A great technical team and a great partner we’ve been lucky to come across. We have been working together for many years and I’m looking forward to keep on working with Vilmate...
They are “our team” – not “Vilmate's team” and I like that a lot!
