App · PWA · TWA
Do you really need an app? PWAs and TWAs explained with two real cases
When someone asks us for an app, the first question is: what must it do that a website cannot? Very often the answer is «nothing». An installable web app opens from the home screen like an app, updates itself and is built once.
The hidden cost of a native app
iPhone and Android are two different projects to build and maintain. Every update goes through store review and reaches only those who install it. And anyone who wants to try your service first has to find the app, download it and free up space on their phone: many stop there.
What a PWA is
A PWA (Progressive Web App) is a website the phone can install. It has its own icon on the home screen, opens full screen and can stay usable on a poor connection. On Android it installs from Chrome, on iPhone from Safari with «Add to Home Screen». It updates like a website: you publish, and the new version is already there.
What a TWA is
A TWA (Trusted Web Activity) is the same web app packaged as an Android app: a signed file that installs like any app and can also be distributed on Google Play. It opens without an address bar only if the site confirms, with a file published on the domain, that it recognises the app's signature. It is the way to have an Android app without writing a second one.
Safe Woman: the course in your pocket
Safe Woman is the yearly women's self-defence course in Bergamo. Its site is an installable web app: timetable and venues, notices, sign-up from a QR code and a digital membership card, usable on poor coverage too. In the four days after sign-ups opened, more than 700 women confirmed a place without the site ever going down, and nobody had to download anything from a store.
Route Planner: from the browser to an Android app
Route Planner, our route planner, is a single web app used three ways: in the browser, installed as a PWA, and as an Android app through a TWA. The app is downloaded signed straight from the site, with its fingerprint to check it, and what changes on the site reaches it at once.
When you really need a native app
When you need deep access to the hardware (Bluetooth, sensors in the background), a lot of work without a connection, or when being on the App Store is part of the product. Otherwise we start from the web app: if the app is ever needed, the work already done is not thrown away.