PWAs in App Stores

I find the negativity in this thread depressing.<p>The web stack (html&#x2F;css&#x2F;js&#x2F;http) is one of the most impressive feats of invention by humanity. We have this one stack and toolkit that run on everything from a desktop computer down to a cheap (as little as 100$) mobile phone. It&#x27;s free with no payments for access or deployment, and at the bottom end basic enough that a child can pick it up. But capable of building incredible professional experiences (see Figma or onShape, seriously they are incredible).<p>As a sole developer I can build something with a single code base for mobile (both web and installable), and desktop (again both web and installable). The breadth of tooling available is incredible.<p>The OP is about PWAbuilder, there are alternatives. I like the combination of Capacitor (from the Ionic Framework team) and Native Script. It lets you extent your installable version of the app with additional native capability, all while staying mostly in a JS environment.<p>The complaints about PWA being poor are, in my view, two fold. One, the support for them on iOS has be atrocious until recently, but also there are a lot of poorly written webapps. That is actually a testament to the accessibility of the platform. Look past that and you see what it is truly capable of.<p>We need to stop this silly gate keeping, it&#x27;s frankly ridiculous.<p>Edit: since I started writing the negative posts have them voted down the page. Looking more positive now.<p>Edit 2: While I have your attention, if you care about PWAs and consumer choice of web engines on mobile, go support the OWA (Open Web Advocacy - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;open-web-advocacy.org&#x2F;donate&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;open-web-advocacy.org&#x2F;donate&#x2F;</a>). They are there to represent us and push for move choice and support. They are turning up and presenting the evidence needed to ensure the large players open up their platforms.

While this is nice, to me the whole promise of PWA is that developers can escape confusing App Store rules, long approval process, and the absurd 30% commissions.<p>So no, thank you. I don’t want back into the App Store.

In my opinion PWAs don&#x27;t need to be in app stores, but they need a MUCH better UX in all modern browsers - For example, I have installed the Spotify PWA in my Linux machine. I get a nice Spotify icon in my favourites toolbar and a great native-like user experience when I open it. I consider it completely separate app to (for example) Chrome browser which I have open at the same time. But if I weren&#x27;t involved with web technologies day-to-day, I wouldn&#x27;t have a clue that it was possible because my browser gives almost zero hints.

Apple&#x27;s App Store has a specific rule that excludes many PWAs from being approved, you may have a tough time convincing a reviewer that it should be allowed on the store <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.apple.com&#x2F;app-store&#x2F;review&#x2F;guidelines&#x2F;#minimum-functionality" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;developer.apple.com&#x2F;app-store&#x2F;review&#x2F;guidelines&#x2F;#min...</a>

If you use tools like this you run a high risk of having your app banned.<p>Google Play strongly enforce their policy about how an app cannot be something that duplicates the functionality of a website.<p>Example:<p>Years ago I wrote a simple html&#x2F;js app, and published it to the Google Play store using Cordova. It was a completely self contained app and did not access the internet (although it required internet permissions to use the webview). After publishing the app, I reused much of that code and release the app as a simple website.<p>Google Play deleted my app because purely because the app had a similar version on a website - even the styles were slightly different between them! The reviewer ignored of my explanations and refused to reinstate my app, even after I deleted the web-version of the app.<p>This was a 5 star app with only positive reviews!<p>If I got my app deleted because it smelt like it might be a webview wrapper of a PWA, using a service that is a PWA wrapper sounds like the most risky thing ever!

The biggest issue to be addressed is monetization IMO. Without monetization there won&#x27;t be much adoption and without much adoption there won&#x27;t be much support.<p>I have a PWA (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;journalisticapp.com" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;journalisticapp.com</a>) published in the PlayStore as TWA (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;play.google.com&#x2F;store&#x2F;apps&#x2F;details?id=com.journalisticapp.twa">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;play.google.com&#x2F;store&#x2F;apps&#x2F;details?id=com.journalist...</a>) via bubblewrap. It has many users and people love it, many don&#x27;t realize it is not a native app. But I struggle since a long time to find a good way to monetize it.<p>First of all, there is no good guidance about the topic besides some clips about the Digital Goods API and it only works for recent Chrome. How do deal with users that use a different browser or an older version? Is it ok to check if the API is available and if not use Stripe? No info about that... It can be pulled off, but UX will definitely be bad or worse.<p>Then, there is the problem with complex backend logic and accounting, I have to deal with two scenarios, did the person use Play Billing or Stripe to purchase? What if he used Play Billing and then wants to manage their subscription in the browser or other way around? It would be amazing if either Play Billing could also handle purchases on the web, or if Stripe could detect TWAs and automatically send 15-30% to Google for doing nothing.<p>Also, what about testing? How can I test my Digital Goods integration if it is only available within an Android app and not in my PWA? Am I supposed to publish an app that points to my dev server?<p>If Google was really serious about PWAs and Trusted Web Activities I think they should allow developers to use 3rd party payment systems (in TWAs only) until all of the issues are resolved and have solutions, instead of being like &quot;ya we don&#x27;t know either, you figure it out, but you can&#x27;t use Stripe&quot;. As TWAs are only a miniscule fraction of TWAs in the PlayStore it won&#x27;t even make a hint of a dent into Google&#x27;s revenue, but it would allow developers to seriously pursue a PWA solution over a native one and therefore allow Google to see if it is viable and worth putting serious resources into.

disclaimer &#x27;iOS does not support PWAs natively and packaging PWAs for iOS is Experimental. We can not guarantee that your app will be accepted into Apple’s App Store.&#x27; - i also doubt the PWA push notifications on iOS would work on a webview.<p>otherwise, very cool however the app store market monopoly is a joke. So are most of the user ratings on such stores. The beauty of PWA&#x27;s is that there is no appstore or an over looking body - the internet is free!

Didn&#x27;t Apple pretty much kill PWAs due to lack of&#x2F;slow support in Safari?

PWABuilder solves nothing. Technology is never the problem, it is the utterly incomprehensible bureaucracy of Google, Meta but especially Apple and Microsoft. One is supposed to become a Microsoft partner (1000 pages of incoherent BS) or buy Apple hardware. That is the real problem.

For me PWA aren’t apps and I will always protest their inclusion in any store as apps.

Regular reminder that &quot;web apps&quot; are just apps written for the very opinionated and limited stack. In this stack instead of proper UI framework developers left with typesetting engine (HTML), weird set of global styling variables (CSS) and half-baked scripting language with no philosophy (JS). All this lavishly peppered with tons of layers of abstractions and hacks on top to make it more or less usable for modern UIs. Complexity of these layers is borderline insane, and more and more hacks are being added every year. On top of this, as a result of wild nature of non-existent distribution process on web, the app runs in a limited sandbox. That&#x27;s also a reason why not just usability, but security and performance of web apps are so much worse than native apps.<p>Downvoting starts in 3..2..1..

This might just be completely revolutionary for my company. We sell a white-label (their logo and name) application to companies that their customers can use. This made PWA&#x27;s ideal since we can have both a website and an app that would be created from a single codebase.<p>The problem is that the companies insist on publishing it to app stores, despite the fact that it is a hell for us to maintain as well as being completely indifferent from the users perspective once it&#x27;s installed.<p>Having this as an option almost completely solves the maintainability issues of &quot;packaging&quot; and re-releasing the site every time we want to deliver an update.

I&#x27;ve been rocking PWA and Blazor in the early days, collanon.app is my gem, but no money yet other than a donation from a Canadian ┐ ( ´ ー ｀ ) ┌

Ok, but what happens if your web app has a free and pro plan with a subscription funnel on it? There should be a way to remove the subscription option from the generated package, make an &quot;App Stores&quot; version of the app. App Stores will not accept the webapp version without getting a cut from any payments.

So it seems that PWA means progressive web application [1] and if my very cursory scan is correct it obviously has nothing to do with progressive loading.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Progressive_web_app" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Progressive_web_app</a>

Sure, put PWAs in <i>some</i> online &quot;app&quot; store, but personally, if I am going to an App Store (be it iOS or Android), I want <i>actual real platform apps</i>, not cross-platform web apps.

The best thing about PWA that it does not have to be on any store at all.

how is this useful if google play and apple store does not even allow web apps(html js css) in their store?