Microsoft Edge (Chromium) has been updated with a new flag called ‘Web Apps Identity Proxy’ to enable deeper integration between PWAs and Windows shell.
When this flag is enabled on Windows 10 20H1 machines, web apps will be treated as native apps and there are many advantages. For example, web apps would appear independently in Windows 10’s Task Manager, it will allow web apps to display notification badges, and it will also let you uninstall the apps from the Start menu or settings.
PWAs are a major boon for smaller and alternative platforms too, since it gives comparatively easy access to popular applications like Twitter, WhatsApp, and others.
Isn’t this pretty much where Google was going with its “native” apps, until it gave up?
Google has not given up on anything.
I guess you haven’t been paying attention to PWAs, TWA (Android packaged PWAs), and the Web APIs for bluetooth, filesystem access, serial port, share sheet.
In package not sure why this is news, basically Microsoft Edge (Chromium) is being updated to support what Windows already supports with PWAs getting UWP native access if delivered via the Windows Store.
https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/pwa
Dang!
Do you know if Microsoft will provide TypeScript tools to develop PWA apps? Or if it will be possible to use C++ or Go or Python3?
I hate JS with passion and the only way I could swallow this monstrosity was by using TypeScript (yeah, I know, sometimes we have no options but .. I hope we do).
Microsoft already has a framework that allows one to write the frontend code (i.e. code executed in a web browser) with C# and .NET Core.
C# normally runs in the background on the server just like the rest of .NET and .NET Core. However, browsers now support webassembly and the https://dotnet.microsoft.com/apps/aspnet/web-apps/blazor project allows you to write your frontend code in c#. There is also the possibility to run your “frontend code on the backend because SignalR”
Alternatively Microsoft developed TypeScript, which doesn’t have much to do with C# or .NET but basically compiles to JavaScript while retaining and makes connecting backend and frontend a lot easier (node.js/angular)
Both Blazor and TypeScript are Open Source projects on github and are based on open standards btw (although not all of .NET is open source…yet)
I’ve learnt to wait for the current fad to mature a bit before I care much about it. Chrome had one or two goes already of trying to push web apps into the desktop – the most obvious of which – packaged Chrome Apps on Windows – they most definitely gave up on after a big push in the Windows 8 era.
Unfortunately “PWA” is both a bad acronym to look into, and doesn’t seem to really be doing an awful lot interesting once you strip away the marketing junk. They’re an offline web app with some APIs to let sites use some native features – features built partly in response to the web in the first place? Meh.
So is this what the iPhone tried to do ? What HTML5 standard tried to do with the HTML5 manifest file for offline use, WebOS and ChromeOS too ?
And looks like Google, Microsoft, Mozilla and even Apple will support it ?
If this is the case (from an other article):
“PWAs can be listed in app stores for easier discovery and installation, but the app store will just point to the web app’s servers. Even if an app isn’t compatible with an app store’s content policies, users will be able to find and install it directly from their browser.”
“Google is working on a technology named WebAPK that will allow PWAs to be turned into APK files (Android app files) and installed onto the device, like other apps.”
Let’s remember that with WebAssembly, WebGL, etc. allows to port lots of different applications written in other languages to the web. but also allows libraries from other languages to be used by web applications.
If these companies are serious and developers understand the implications that would be a big deal, probably bigger than FIDO2/WebAuthn..
An advantage of this, is that those APKs probably are still sandboxes like websites, so they don’t have access to a bunch of things native apps have which are privacy problems.
Seems companies like Microsoft are serious:
https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/26/20983886/microsoft-outlook-com-pwa-progressive-web-app-install-features
PWA has been a promising technology for a while and although it isn’t really picking up speed it isn’t slowing down either. I am keeping PWA in my mental box with labels “Probably important, work, personal, next 3 years”
(Maybe related) Isn’t this what Apple wanted to do 20 years ago with Hypercard 3.0 (integrating HyperCard with Quicktime and web distribution)? Killed like everything else HC.. Just read about HC 3.0 the other day. Made me wonder – between that, NewtonScript byte-code, and the whole eWorld concept-maybe-reality-a-little-(don’t-remember) , could Apple have scooped Oracle and created something like Java first if they had really wanted to?
(It would have probably failed in some way as the Scully era was kind of disorganized as I remember.)
Just wondering, Why is it every time this is mentioned it’s treated as something new? Microsoft has been doing something along these lines for years. Does no one else remember HTAs in Windows with IE5. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTML_Application
Or pinned websites in Vista and Windows 7 with IE9. https://www.zdnet.com/article/internet-explorer-9-beta-review-microsoft-reinvents-the-browser/
How I listened to pandora for the longest time.
Perhaps because this time the whole thing is supposed to work on any OS and Web browser? Yes, that is why.
It always was, but THIS time is much less likely to actually happen.
Why do you think so?
To me, it seems that we may end up with different packaging to make the thing available for different platforms but would keep the same internal structure, what is unlike what we have on our current situation where the differences on main OS’s have a considerable impact/interference on contained project. Of course, I’m discounting the geometry aspects involved, i.e., the application still has to adapt to the visualization constraints.
Different platforms always want to be different and different applications wants to be different. So you end up have those two things competing:
1. All applications being consistent on a platform
2. One application being consistent across platforms
Developers can never agree on this.
And I have less faith in PWA because the web standards are too powerful now. It it easier to force consistency to the local platform when the expressive power of content authors to achieve point 2 is weaker.
Unfortunately, I do remember HTAs in IE 5, and I remember Active Desktop in Windows 98 before that. May we never see these fiascoes return.