Google Blurs The Lines Between Web And Mobile Apps

These days with such heavy emphasis being placed on mobile, more web developers are starting to make websites more mobile-friendly, whether it be a UI that’s catered to mobile, or turning a website into a web app where it functions like an app, except that you don’t have to install it on your phone.

The only problem with web apps is that you’ll have to load the website whenever you want to access it, as opposed to apps that already live on your phone. However Google wants to change that with a new feature for Chrome for Android called Progressive Web Apps. This is basically an enhanced version of adding websites to your Android home screen.

According to Google, “Progressive Web Apps will now appear in the app drawer section of the launcher and in Android Settings, and will be able to receive incoming intents from other apps. Long presses on their notifications will also reveal the normal Android notification management controls rather than the notification management controls for Chrome.”

What this means is that web apps can soon function on smartphones like regular apps, without developers having to create a separate dedicated mobile app. While the feature will be available to Chrome at the start, Google plans to allow other browsers on Android to make use of this feature as well.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Cellphones
Tags: Android, Apps, Chrome, Google