The PWA Revolution is Off to a Slow Start. Why? (Premium)

I had hoped that 2018 would be the year of the Progressive Web App (PWA). It could still happen, but the revolution is unfolding in slow motion, at least so far.

Granted, I am the patron saint of PWAs. And despite a reputation for being negative, I’m really a pie-eyed optimist when it comes to how technology can positively impact our lives. And PWAs fall into a nice bucket for me, as they represent a holy grail, of sorts, of right time/right technology. And this is true for both developers and users. It’s a win-win.

Put another way, PWAs solve real problems. They are a way for developers to simultaneously target every single major computing platform on earth—Android, iOS, web, Windows, Mac, Chrome OS, and even Linux—with a single, more easily maintained code base that can scale to the capabilities of each. As I wrote previously, PWAs are the future of apps, period.

Unfortunately, PWAs are still the future of apps. This is true despite the fact that the April 2018 Update, which brings full PWA compatibility to Windows 10, rolling out more quickly than any previous feature update. And despite the fact that PWAs are already fully compatible with Android, the biggest personal computing platform on earth.

To bare my soul a bit, I had really hoped that we’d see an explosion of major PWAs by the middle of the year. That we’d be able to move past the handful of high-quality PWA examples—Twitter, Starbucks—that we’ve been pointing to since, well, forever.

But it’s been a trickle: Since the beginning of April, we’ve seen Google Photos and Uber go PWA. Twitter has received several major updates, including some that improve Windows 10 integration. And Microsoft has added several PWAs to the Microsoft Store, quietly. Though most are not very impressive.

So how do we explain the slow pace?

Aside from my irrational exuberance, I will have to rely on my Monday Morning Quarterback skills to explain this one away. And I think the real issue here is a familiar one for developers. They have existing code bases, and moving from them to something new is often so daunting that it never happens.

And on that note, the big PWA wins we’ve seen so far are just websites. And that makes sense: Turning a website into a basic PWA is not overly difficult. Adding more PWA features over time, including those that are platform-specific, is likewise not overly difficult. It’s something that can happen over time, as part of a transition.

But many of the websites that have been converted to PWA, and many that will be, are for brands that already have mature mobile apps too. So Starbucks or Twitter can make a PWA, but they must also maintain separate Android and iOS native apps too. Over time, those apps should be replaced by the PWA. But for that to happen, the PWA must include all of the functionality of the mobile app. And today, that is just not the case.

Looking at the situation from this new perspective, I think it’s reasonable to assume that more and more high-profile web apps will transition to PWA. It should start with Google. After all, Google has already said it would do so, and Google’s desktop platform, Chrome OS, would benefit greatly from this change. Google is already maintaining three code bases anyway. So PWAs are still a win.

For Microsoft, however, things are a bit more complex: I may wish for the firm to replace the terrible Mail, Calendar, and People apps in Windows 10 (and Outlook.com on the web) with a single PWA version of Outlook.com, but opinions vary: Many sad souls actually like those apps, and of course, Microsoft maintains several other Outlook-branded clients across multiple platforms. And each has its own advantages. Going all-in on PWA right now may actually be a step back in some cases.

For this reason, I feel like Microsoft and other more traditional software makers may move more slowly into PWA than I had originally hoped. This is vaguely disappointing. But in retrospect, it kind of makes sense too.

One thing I am not stepping back from, however, is my belief that PWAs really are the future of apps. Yes, everyone can come up with some examples of apps or games that cannot be PWAs today or even in the future. But we’ve always lived in a multicultural world when it comes to how developers make apps. PWAs are absolutely poised to become the basis for most mainstream apps. It just makes too much sense.

Again, PWAs are the future of apps, period. But that future is still in the future.