Businesses that haven’t yet joined the mobile revolution because they aren’t sure whether a mobile app, mobile-friendly website, or combination of the two will best serve their needs without breaking their budget have a third option.
Web development service review platform Skilled.co and development team Greenice recently released an infographic highlighting the benefits of developing what it calls “progressive web apps” (PWAs), a term coined in 2015 by designer Frances Berriman and Google Chrome engineer Alex Russell.
“A PWA is a combination of mobile-friendly website and app,” Skilled.co content development manager Kintan Ayunda writes in a Feb. 28 blog post. “A PWA is responsive to almost all devices and it feels and functions like an app you’d get from Google Play or the Apple.”
“The key feature to a PWA is that despite it feeling exactly like an app, users do not have to spend time trying to find it and they do not have to download it,” he continues. “It makes use of modern browser features and allows users to upgrade easily.”
There are several reasons to consider developing a PWA instead of merely a mobile-friendly website or mobile app, Ayunda writes, not least of which are development costs – between $6,000 and $20,000 USD, versus the average cost of between $20,000 and $80,000 USD for a native app.
Users are more likely to take advantage too, since even though studies show the average user has around 27 apps on their smartphone, they spend approximately 87 per cent of their time on them.
For additional information, you can read Ayunda’s post here, or check out Skilled.co’s infographic below (click for the full version).
