PROGRESSIVE WEB APPS: BETWEEN NATIVE AND MOBILE WEB APPLICATIONS

Abstract

In today’s world, mobile devices have become an indispensable part of our reality. According to an unwritten rule, most people rely on mobile technology when it comes to contacts, messages, email messages, notifications, calendars, social networks, etc., which allow them almost instant exchange of information. With the growing number of mobile devices and the increasing coverage of mobile networks, user demands for mobile content is increased.Although there is a growing number of mobile applications for specific mobile platform,so-called native applications, some researches has found that even though users download mobile apps from online store, free or for a fee, install and configure them, they actually use a very small number of them.On the other hand, the Web does not require installation, configuration, or setting permissions for applications, but simply by entering the address into the browser, the content becomes available. The speed of content delivery to the end user is the reason for customer satisfaction. Google has noticed the aforementioned trend and created a new type of application called Progressive Web apps. It combines characteristics of native applications, as well as mobile web applications, in order to have best of both worlds, and offer better user experience than the current mobile Web, which increases the time spent on the site by users.Although the above-mentioned trend is still under development, the results of large on-line companies that implemented Progressive Web Apps has led authorto describe this type of application, along with the changes in the user experience.