One notable feature mentioned in apple’s Release Notes for Safari Technology Preview 46 on December 21, 2017 is support for Service workers. At the beginning of the report, Service worker-related content is directly displayed. Different from the previous “planned” or “under consideration”, Apple has fully implemented the Service Worker API and Cache API in Safari Technology Preview. The “offline accessibility” feature is fully supported.
It is important to note that Safari Technology Preview is not a regular version of Safari. We can understand it as a early release or technology-related Showcase version of Safari. The supported content is not really available to users. IOS Safari support, in particular, may still have some time. Mac OS students can go directly to the
webkit.org/downloads/Download, install and use.
I am very excited to see this news. If Apple can join the supporters camp of PWA, I believe that Apple can rely on its strong ecological control ability to make PWA better and more standardized, at least compared to the chaotic Android market in China. By virtue of this, here can be considered “what can THE PWA bring”? “Why has Apple been so slow to respond positively to PWA?” but still chooses to support related features. You can also discuss “why has PWA, which has become so popular abroad, not exploded in China yet?”
What does the PWA bring
Need to figure out what PWA can bring, can be analyzed from the perspective of users, content and service providers, search engines, we will find that the reason why foreign site PWA in full swing is actually a multi-win result.
Internet user
First of all, let’s talk about what can be brought for Internet users. For users, the demand is actually very simple, just when they want to obtain information or services, they can easily obtain them. Both the current Web App and Native App aim to provide users with the most convenient use experience, so that users can quickly find what they want. In the context of this large information and service demand, users have the following demands:
- Convenient: You can find the entrance quickly and accurately
- Fast: Can quickly display the required information and services, especially in the weak network environment.
- Available: Offline or weak network conditions can also be used.
- Space saving: Mobile devices have limited storage space, and too many APPS will require more storage space, which will undoubtedly increase the cost of mobile device upgrade.
Currently, Native apps do a good job in convenience, enabling users to quickly and accurately find information or services through the App Icon entrance. However, Native apps cannot solve the problem of offline or weak network requests. The most important thing is that they occupy a lot of storage space of mobile devices, which is an inevitable pain point for users. Web sites are another main way to obtain information and services. Especially for some short frequency requirements, they are reluctant to install a Native App. However, traditional Web sites can save storage space for users to install Native App, but other points are pain points for users.
PWA is still a Web site in essence, but the offline ability of PWA’s Service Worker and weak network request strategy can greatly enhance the availability of Web sites. App Shell design can quickly show the speed of the site. Manifest’s “Add to desktop” feature makes it easy for users to find and install, saving storage space.
Content service provider
Whether it’s a Web site or a Native App, content or service providers are concerned about the following:
- The user experience
- Development costs
- Transmissibility (Raxin)
- User engagement (Retention)
The operation of Native App is smooth and the user experience is good. Since users can quickly find the entrance after installing the App, and there is a message notification mechanism that can accurately push the App, good user retention effect and good user stickiness can be achieved, but the development cost is relatively high. It requires a dedicated iOS and Android development team to develop, with long development cycles and strict reviews. However, traditional Web sites have poor experience compared with Native apps, but they have great advantages in terms of development cost and disseminability because they are Web pages.
For content and service providers, PWA is the result of combining the advantages of Web site and Native App and learning from each other. PWA itself is a Web site, which maintains existing advantages in development cost and disseminability. However, due to the “offline accessibility” feature, With the support of some caching strategies and HTML5 related Native API, the user experience is as good as that of Native App. The “add to desktop” and “message Push” mechanisms in terms of engagement make PWA a complete solution to the pain points of traditional Web site stickiness. So PWA brings too much to the table for content and service providers (Web sites /Native apps).
Of course, the most important thing about PWA for content and service providers is openness. All development processes follow open standards, not closed and customized standards, and everything is under their own control.
Search engine
Search engines have several pressing needs:
- Quality search results landing site
- Rich content can be retrieved
- Can be widely recognized landing page site quality evaluation mechanism
Different from a few years ago, the emergence of Native apps on various platforms in recent years leads to the content being locked in their own closed loop, which makes the content of search engines unable to meet users’ precise search needs. However, there are many short frequency demands and users cannot conveniently search in specialized Native apps. Therefore, the current situation is a great harm to users, especially users with short frequency requirements.
PWA itself is a Web site, so the content of the search engine is supplemented, the content of the PWA site can be retrieved, the good experience of PWA as the landing page of search results is urgently needed for the ecological quality of the search engine. Most importantly, PWA has a good set of support scoring criteria in terms of supported features, which makes it easy for search engines to automatically evaluate the quality of a Web App.
The attitude of the Apple
Google has fully supported PWA-related features in its Chrome browser for a long time, and even continuously launched relevant tools for development and debugging. Chrome DevTools and Lighthouse are almost all making various upgrades centering on PWA-related features. Many foreign content and service providers have joined the PWA supporters camp, and many PWA applications have been published, such as Twitter and other large Web apps.
However, Apple’s attitude towards PWA has been lukewarm, and it has not actively promoted and participated in PWA. Apple may consider that PWA will affect the traffic distribution of its Native App entrance, which is different from Google. Although Google is also an operating system manufacturer, However, Google relies more on its search engine for entrance traffic distribution, and PWA, as a Web site with good user experience, can naturally bring more positive benefits to Google’s search engine. Since Apple does not have the support of search engine, it cannot consider ecological issues like Google. That’s why Apple wasn’t active before.
However, Apple’s support for Service Worker in Safari Technology Previwe at least shows that Apple’s support for PWA-related features is in progress. There may be a heated discussion going on inside Apple about the future of PWA, but at least one thing is certain that Apple is open and supportive of PWA from the perspective of user experience friendliness and developer friendliness. After all, Apple has not raised any objection. There has also been substantial progress and output on the schedule. But I think Apple will try to strike a balance between the Native App ecosystem and the PWA Web ecosystem. It remains to be seen how this will be done. Maybe when Apple fully supports PWA in Safari and iOS Safari, If Apple can embrace PWA, I don’t see any reason why domestic Android vendors shouldn’t.
Note:
IOS Safari currently supports manual “Add to desktop” functionality, but does not refer to the Web Manifest standard implementation.
Why is there no outbreak of PWA in the country
First of all, let’s talk about why foreign PWA is so popular. In addition to its advantages for users and content service providers, there are actually several important factors, which have great resistance in China:
- Google Chrome has a huge market share and has complete support for PWA
- Google’s promotion is strong
- Open Web Push Sevice
There are too many domestic browser manufacturers with inconsistent support and interest considerations, leading to difficult consistency in PWA experience, while foreign Chrome browser has a huge market share and a good user base. Moreover, there are few organizations dedicated to PREACHING PWA in China, which makes it difficult to cause a trend. The Push Service related to “news Push” is used by foreign developers, but our XXX, And there is no enterprise like Google or Firebase in China to develop services like GCM and FCM.
In the whole PWA ecosystem, it seems that the mobile operating system manufacturers are the biggest victims. If PWA breaks out, the traffic of Native App will decrease, and the manufacturers, as the main gate of the traffic distribution of Native App, will definitely be impacted in terms of traffic distribution income. A big part of Apple’s delay in responding to PWA is the tradeoff between the Native App ecosystem and the user experience versus the developer experience. The major Android phone manufacturers in China also ignore the PWA because of such concerns.
There is no need to say here why PWA has not broken out in China. On the one hand, we can focus on The trend of Apple, and I think Apple’s solution should be the solution of manufacturers, after all, they are facing the same problems. On the other hand, since PWA benefits from multiple aspects, the cooperation between search engines and manufacturers is also imperative. After all, there should be no victims in a complete and healthy ecosystem. The successful promotion of Google in foreign countries is largely due to the fact that Google is both a search engine and an operating system manufacturer. We look forward to the cooperation between domestic search engines and manufacturers, and also look forward to the perfect landing of PWA in China.
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