- Any Web site can become a PWA — but we need to do better
- By Christian Heilmann
- The Nuggets translation Project
- Permanent link to this article: github.com/xitu/gold-m…
- Translator: wilsonandusa
- Proofreader: LeviDing, Weiting Zhang
After reading Jeremy’s blog, my eyes suddenly lit up.
No matter what anyone else says, any website can and should be a progressive web application. When I heard Chris Heilmann say at an event last year that you shouldn’t build your blog into a progressive web app, I couldn’t believe my ears. “I don’t understand, for example, why anyone would build their blog as a progressive web app,” he reiterated during the video call. I don’t want to have an icon on my desktop, it doesn’t make sense to me.” I’m sorry, but just because you don’t want to put an icon on your phone’s desktop, shouldn’t someone else use the latest technology? Forgive me for being rude, but fuck it! Fuck it! .
Our imaginations are limited by current mobile apps, making us imitate and perpetuate our current state like a bunch of primitive people.
I don’t want the site to be prototyped; I want the site to go beyond native. I don’t want my home screen to be filled with standardised app ICONS for startups and big companies. A website where we can publish content freely is what I want.
I’m not telling you not to use good, modern technology to benefit your users and make it easier to publish your own content. The composition of progressive web applications themselves could make them even more successful than they are now.
I wish we could do more. I want modern Internet technology to be just something for personal use. I wish we could touch it and use it at work, not bring it to work, and not just marvel at what someone has done or what a company has done.
In today’s environment, we can use any powerful technology, but we should aim higher. We need to figure out what’s going wrong and replace the old solutions with smarter, simpler solutions. I’m not in a position to tell anyone that they shouldn’t use a particular technology while blogging, but I also don’t want to see a whole bunch of incremental sites that have terrible user experiences. We’ve done this a lot before, and now that we have a good way to do it, we have to do it a good way.
I have spoken out against the current store format more than once because it discourages use. With the Internet, it’s like an artificial barrier, right?
Perhaps, in fact, the new generation only knows apps, not web apps. In their eyes, websites are always full of ads and malware and should always be blocked. In some places where the connection is bad, people actually think facebook is the web. Because it’s a little easier to use than the big web sites.
When I say I don’t understand the need to turn a private blog into a progressive site, I’m referring to the confusing app part of it. To me, an app is meant to “do” something, not “read” something. I don’t understand why there are wired magazine, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Time. There are so many program ICONS that they can’t all fit on the desktop. I use an RSS reader to read blogs. I use e-books to read (or browse websites). I use Spotify or iTunes to listen to music. I don’t have an app for every band or every movie.
I’ve done a lot of posts for Donkey’s online and I chose to use blogs because I didn’t know what you would like and I love it. I don’t think you should have a “Chris Heilmann” icon on your desktop. It should be a tweet or a bookmark. You can only read in a blog. Write in the way that makes you happy.
I couldn’t agree more with Jeremy:
I don’t want the site to be prototyped; I want the site to go beyond native.
That’s why I don’t want to turn my blog into an app – in any form. I want people to create progressive websites that are richer than bookmarking – even when they’re offline, they can notify me when something new comes up.
Does that mean I don’t approve of you using a manifest and service worker to improve your website or blog? Not at all. Just do what’s right. In particular, do what progressive web sites require: stop using HTTP for publishing and encrypt your servers. Stop hacks from middlemen, especially government agencies that are happy to be middlemen.
I hope the sites succeed where they are needed most. I wish native apps would go away. I don’t want to download a program just to buy a subway ticket in Berlin. I don’t want to go through a procedure at every airport. I especially hate having to download apps every time I go to an event. I don’t want to download a program just for my favorite restaurant. I don’t need to sacrifice the little storage space I have on my phone or in the desktop/quick launch bar on my computer for this relationship.
We need websites that excel at what native apps suck: distribution and convenience. I don’t want you to go to the store and download, install and run a program just to get everything done. I want people to have access to free content without a credit card. You need a credit card to use free apps in the app store — a big hurdle. I want you to look for the following trains, make a restaurant reservation, make a doctor’s appointment or look for anything without having to think about network connectivity or choice of equipment. I want people to take pictures and share them. I don’t want people to keep using insecure and outdated programs to avoid downloading 50MB daily updates. I don’t want people using apps that come with their phones or using the browser as a last resort. In order to do this, we need strong progressive sites with better-known entities and better players.
Progressive websites are about trying before you buy
I want users to know that they are in control. As I said in Poland last week, progressive sites are about trying things out before you buy them. You go to a web site and you like what you see. After a few visits you decide to increase the number of privileges the site can control, such as working offline or even sending you notifications.
A progressive site needs to be able to gain some access. So we need a good example. I don’t use Twitter in its native form anymore. Twitter Lite uses and saves a lot of data and memory. I’ve shown this example to a lot of people who have uninstalled the native Twitter application. That’s what we need.
Every time we promote the use of websites, we emphasize these points:
- An easier way to publish
- Everyone has access to content
- Beholden to no one
- Independent platform, independent form, independent invitation
When you look at a site with over a million daily users, it’s very different.
Unfortunately every browser manufacturer has a cross-browser protocol department. We can all point out to big companies where their products are going wrong and provide solutions. We can even give developers solutions outside of the web toolkit. In almost every case we are asked what is the business benefit of doing this.
Of course we have had some small victories, but it would be heartless to ask someone to accept using the site in the current situation. In our eyes, it’s great to do that.
Why is that? We have the technology. We have knowledge. We have tons of interviews, books and tweets. The question is whom we should address. Who built such a bad network in the first place? Or who came up with a great product at home, but got stuck at work because it was beyond repair?
When I say I don’t want blogs to be apps, I’m not saying you shouldn’t load your blog. I don’t stop anyone from publishing content or using technology.
But I don’t think this is enough. We need to be commercially successful. We need to beat the market for native apps. We need to debunk the myth of native app convenience by building better web-based solutions.
We have proven that websites can support self-publishing content well. What we need now is a more functional online presence for companies building iOS and Android apps. We might think this is common sense, but it’s not. We need to remind people again how great the web is and how easy it is to use web technology.
To that end, our first task was to figure out how to monetize the web at scale. We need to find ways to get people to pay for content other than loading ads. We need to show a lot of commercial success stories for advertising and products. Google has spent a lot of money promoting the progressive Web. Every big web company has done this. I’ve also worked with partners to transform regular sites into progressive sites across browsers. There are many good cases to study here. We need more examples.
I don’t want developers to have to spend their free time learning a whole new technology for personal projects. My hope is that companies will understand the value of progressive websites and – more importantly – address current misconceptions about the web and continue to maintain them.
If you think these cases of progressive websites are all about luck, because the people involved happen to love the web – think again. Persuading a company to do something “obvious” often takes a lot of effort and a lot of time and money. Many in-house developers will put their future at risk by persuading their superiors to use another solution to meet their needs. We need to do that. We need to remind people that quality is about effort, not just adding a manifest and service worker to an old project that can’t be maintained.
Jeremy wants the world to be like:
I don’t want my home screen to be filled with standardised app ICONS for startups and big companies. But a home screen full of sites that can freely publish content is what I want.
I want to do more. I hope the world of advertising and online commerce isn’t just about native apps and closed markets. I don’t want everyone to think it’s normal to buy an iPhone just to have access to something. I don’t want companies to spend a lot of money showing an app in the app store when they can develop on the Web. I think the world we’re in right now is exactly what Jeremy described. And — AND I want to emphasize again — if everybody thinks it’s a good idea and wants to do it, then I hope everybody accepts it.
No effort will be wasted to convert your current web product into a progressive web site. What you do is very beneficial to the quality and longevity of the product. That’s the best part. But it also means you need to control the quality of your product so that people who need to install your APP get what they need. We’ve discussed these quality goals before, and several companies are now pushing their ideas. It doesn’t mean we have to censor the Internet or shut down employees (there are people working outside the company). This means we don’t want to repeat the “poor USER experience of HTML5 apps” story.
I’ve been blogging for years. I learned a lot from it, and it was great. But I don’t want the Internet to be something people believe in. I hope people don’t use the web as a storehouse for apps – especially advertising agencies. We shirked a lot of responsibility in order to make products that connect people to the Web every day. The current demise of apps/stores is a great opportunity. I want everyone who is interested and has an idea to get involved.
I can’t imagine having a phone full of face ICONS. This is supposed to be a phone book. I use e-books (my browser) for the same reason. I don’t need to have an app for every author.
I think it’s a good idea to have a reading collector that can be used to see the latest, inspirational summaries. I like to use a reader that helps me with my search. So that if I want to talk to the authors behind these books I can contact them directly and talk to them, or — better yet — meet them directly.
An app — for me — is there to do one thing. The blog is an app to me, but not to others. You can’t edit it. I even turned off the comments section so I could spend more time tweaking content than answering questions. That’s why it’s not an incremental web app. I can change the site, but I always feel like I should post more articles when you put my site on your phone’s home screen.
So when I say that personal blogs are not progressive sites for me, that’s what I mean. Apps are there to do one thing. If I can’t do anything other than read or share, then you can make this site progressive. But I probably won’t install it. It’s the same reason I wouldn’t download an app for Kim Kardashian or a band.
This has nothing to do with your right to publish. It’s about getting space on a user’s home screen, quick launch bar, or limited space on the desktop. If you like to fill the screen with friends’ blogs or people you like – great. I’d actually like to see a mobile phone in the near future with progressive web apps for these people. Rather than an application that requires a 200MB upgrade pack and ends up with security issues that cannot be upgraded. I want connectivity to be centralized in the latest devices, so we need to aim higher and do better.
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