Microsoft will begin providing Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) via the Windows Store beginning in Windows 10 version 1803. Here’s how it will happen and what I think this will mean for Windows 10 users.
As you may know, I’ve become increasingly convinced that Progressive Web Apps, or PWAs as I’ll now call them, are a more viable apps platform that “pure” Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps, which tend to be lackluster and even unprofessional-looking. There are a lot of choices here on Thurrott.com for the PWA-curious, but Premium subscribers may want to check out Windows 10, PCs, and the Future of Apps again. For the non-Premium subscribers in the audience, here’s an excerpt.
Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!
"*" indicates required fields
Future new app development will almost certainly occur through a hybrid app type called Progressive Web Apps, or PWAs. Yes, PWAs are truly universal in that they will run on any OS with a web browser, including iOS and Android. But don’t worry that this makes Windows less valuable or necessary: As I noted last year, Microsoft is going to embrace and extend PWAs in Windows 10. They will become Store apps on Windows 10. They will look and work like native apps. Like Desktop Bridge apps, they will adopt key Windows 10 technologies, making them unique on the PC.
Since I deal with push back all the time on this kind of thing, I’ll also note that this transition is already happening. As Microsoft’s Brandon Heenan noted recently, “Windows users [already] spend more than half their time on the web.” And that usage is going up. This fact explains boththe strategy behind Windows 10 Cloud and that product’s name [now Windows 10 S]. Microsoft knows that the PWA platform—the cloud—is, in fact, the future of Windows.
I wrote that back in April. At the time—before Build 2017, where I had hoped/expected to hear more about Microsoft’s plans for PWAs, and did—it wasn’t clear when PWAs would come to the Windows Store. In May, the firm said that it would, in fact, bring PWAs to the Store in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update. But like so many Fall Creators Update promises, that isn’t happening.
Now we have a new schedule: Microsoft will bring PWAs to the Windows Store with the next Windows 10 feature update, currently code-named Redstone 4. In other words, in time for Windows 10 version 1803.
We know this because Microsoft outlined this schedule at least twice during last week’s web developer-focused Microsoft Edge Web Summit 2017. I downloaded and watched all of the relevant PWA-based sessions, and while there are three of interest—the keynote, PWA, HWA, Electron, oh my! Making sense of the evolving web app landscape, and Service Worker: Going beyond the page—only that middle one will be of interest to end users/enthusiasts. (With regards to PWAs, that is. The keynote might be interesting to anyone.)
Here’s what I found out.
PWAs in Windows 10 will be native apps as far as end users are concerned. They will be provided via the Windows Store, just like pure UWP apps and other hybrid app types, like Desktop Bridge apps. To users, of course, the underlying technologies used to make an app don’t matter in the slightest. PWAs, in Windows 10, will simply be apps.
PWAs in Windows 10 will likewise have all of the advantages of pure UWPs. I’ve discussed this in the past, but that means they will provide notifications, both via banners an in the Action Center, will work offline, will be adaptive and responsive to different display sizes and form factors, and will even run across all Windows 10 platforms, including PCs, of course, but also Xbox One, HoloLens, and so on.
PWAs will appear in the Store via two mechanisms. Developers can of course manually submit their PWAs to Microsoft for availability in the Store, as they do with other app types. But Microsoft will also automatically add PWAs to the Store by crawling and indexing the web with Bing, finding PWAs that meet its technical requirements, wrapping those PWAs in AppX containers, and making them searchable and browsable in the Store. They are, in fact, secretly testing this functionality right now. Well, not so secretly anymore since they just revealed it.
Microsoft is pioneering the use of PWAs internally by creating many new first-party apps as web apps and then using a variety of platform-specific developer frameworks to add native features across platforms like Android, iOS, Mac, and PC. With Windows 10 in particular, it will convert these web apps to PWA so that they can be deployed through the Store. The biggest and best example? Microsoft Teams, which was developed this way from the ground up. By the time Windows 10 version 1803 ships next April or so, the Windows 10 version of Teams will be a PWA.
Today, developers who are interested in testing PWAs on Windows 10 can enable a secret feature in Microsoft Edge that enables the service worker technology that’s required by PWAs. You do so by opening Edge and navigating to about:flags. Then, scroll down to the Standards Preview area and enable the option “Enable service workers.”
Doing this will not suddenly make websites that fire notifications in Chrome or Firefox start doing so in Edge. Nor will it suddenly enable a green field of PWAs that we’re not currently enjoying. Instead, this is what’s needed for developers to make sure that their PWAs work now in Microsoft Edge so they can be ready for the availability of Store submissions in the spring.
The most interesting new bit here, for me at least, involves the form that these PWAs will take. For example, today with Google Chrome, you can already find PWAs, like Twitter Lite, and pin them to the Windows 10 taskbar. They don’t behave as true PWAs, in that they don’t integrate with native OS features; what you get is the web app.
But with native PWA support in Windows 10 next year, you won’t access these apps through a web browser. And that means you won’t need to deal with web browser UI (which you get today in Edge, but not in Chrome if you pin a site to the taskbar). Instead, you will access these apps from the Store, and you will install them, normally, like other apps. That means that the PWA app windows will be like any other app windows. They will be apps.
The PWA generation is coming, folks. This could be exactly the bump that the lackluster Windows Store needs.
Bats
<p>The PWA generation has already been here. Microsoft is just starting to arrive to it and so has Paul. </p><p>LOL…I've been here for years now. Ever since I've been installing and using Google Chrome Apps and finding out that I can install a shortcut to my desktop and then to my taskbar. To tell you the truth, Google was already recognizing and planning PWAs (I think), 6-8 years ago. I know this because they discussed this then on the other TWiT podcast This Week in Google AND All About Android.</p><p>It's just so funny how Microsoft (and Paul) are so late to the party. I remember, when Paul would mock Google Docs and mockingly say (and I paraphrase), "Who wants to do work on your browser?"</p><p>The question is, will web developers go through all that work to put their stuff on the store? LOL…I am not so sure about that.</p><p>Lastly…this is why Windows 10 S is all about. It's supposed to be like Chromebooks, in terms that everything is sandboxed. I have said this for years, the web browser isn't just an app, it's a gateway to a platform. The fact that the Chrome browser is in Windows 10 (or any operating system) is like having another Operating System inside an OS. That OS is the web.</p><p>The reason for Windows 10 S and Edge is crystal clear. Microsoft wants to distribute (or make it appear) user's internet usage away from the browser and back to the operating system, or make it appear that way. They want the web apps to make it appear like desktop apps. It's like that whole Google-Youtube-Windows8 fiasco. I remember Paul was so mad at Google then. LOL…remember that? How can I ever forget the Windows Weekly episode where Paul said that Google literally gave the finger to all Windows 8 users. Microsoft wants to control "it."</p><p><br></p>
skane2600
<p>Ah, the siren call of WORA/Universal apps. Despite decades of attempts to make it happen, it has never really worked and it never will. They may get PWA's to "run" in most platforms and browsers, but that minimum achievement doesn't make them "universal". As I've said before, techniques like scaling aren't adequate to provide an optimized experience on each platform. Sometimes a different screen "object" altogether is called for when the screen size is different rather than just scaling a common object. What we often see are apps that are bound by the limitations of a small device and then waste tons of space on a PC in order to use the same codebase. That's not to say that one can't write special code to handle different devices but this is a technique that one has always been able to use and after awhile the advantages of a single codebase are offset by the complexity required to make it happen.</p><p><br></p><p>As far as PWA's vs pure UWP's are concerned, I think people who design lackluster UWP apps will create lackluster PWA's as well. It's the skill and care of the developers, not the technology that determines the quality. </p>
skane2600
<blockquote><a href="#180942"><em>In reply to ghostrider:</em></a></blockquote><p>Windows remains a more powerful OS than ChromeOS. Chromebooks have been modestly successful because the trade-off between power and capability isn't a problem for many processing tasks. There are still many things people need to do on PCs that are either non-optimal on Chromebooks or simply impossible. </p><p><br></p><p>Obviously if Windows was being designed today it would be less cluttered, but the relationship between power and complexity can't be entirely avoided. If ChromeOS becomes more capable, it will become more complex, it's unavoidable. </p><p><br></p><p>It's not clear if the ability to run Android apps will significantly increase the adoption of Chromebooks. The vast majority of apps weren't designed for that environment. The primary purpose of mobile apps, IMO, is to overcome the significant disadvantages of web browsing on a phone. Once one is browsing on a laptop with a reasonably-sized screen, the need for an app somewhat disappears (assuming that most app functionality is available on the web). </p>