Mobile App, Progressive Web App (PWA) For IPB

[Silnei L Andrade]

On 9/29/2018 at 2:09 PM, Morgin said:

PWAs are not supported in a form that is beneficial to >50% of mobile traffic and until apple embraces it, it will never be more than a niche technology. I'm not saying apple is this important, it's just that in markets where a lot of us have large forums, our users are predominantly apple/iOS users.

PWAs Are Now Available for Apple Devices with iOS 11.3
https://www.monterail.com/blog/pwa-for-apple-ios

 

An app is impracticable for several reasons already mentioned.  The path is an indexable webapp and at the moment the PWA technology is the best available. Example is the mobile site of twitter, just compare it with a site with responsive design. It is very different, much faster, much easier to navigate, because it was made for mobile.. If that is not possible, AMP pages, even read-only, would already help to index the pages better.

Edited October 1, 2018 by Silnei L Andrade

[bfarber]

We are not ignoring this topic. We just haven't commented is all.

[Morgin]

 

1 hour ago, Silnei L Andrade said:

PWAs Are Now Available for Apple Devices with iOS 11.3
https://www.monterail.com/blog/pwa-for-apple-ios

Example is the mobile site of twitter, just compare it with a site with responsive design. It is very different, much faster, much easier to navigate, because it was made for mobile.

PWA is currently essentially broken for what the main benefits should be on iOS.

No app icon flag support (I.e notifications). Forced page refresh every time you go back to it. No push notification support at all. Limited support of PWA standards.

re Twitter mobile, I’d make the same point I made earlier - what are the actionable changes to the mobile version of the presentation of the platform you would suggest?

 

 

Edited October 1, 2018 by Morgin

[Silnei L Andrade]

 

Most of your users access the responsive version with IOS and will continue to access, even if they create a PWA. There's no reason to create a desktop-only version, right? The theme of responsive design would remain the same, the novelty would be the PWA. One thing don't need to replace the other. The difference is that users could have that option and the search engines too, which instead of indexing a page with 15s of load, would index to compatible mobile which loads in 5s or much less.

 

Anyway, we can not ignore that IOS is used by the minority of users and since 2009 has only fallen. It's almost 10 years since the fall. On the other hand the use of android only increases every year.

IOS vs Android:

https://www.statista.com/statistics/266136/global-market-share-held-by-smartphone-operating-systems/

 

Edited October 1, 2018 by Silnei L Andrade

[Silnei L Andrade]

40 minutes ago, Morgin said:

what are the actionable changes to the mobile version of the presentation of the platform you would suggest?

 

As I said above: If PWA is not possible, support for AMP would already help to get back pages indexed better, even if it is a read-only version.

[Morgin]

FWIW, global mobile device sales tells me nothing. My own analytics shows me >50% of my mobile traffic is iOS. Others have posted similar anecdotal numbers. Invision likely has it own numbers as well. I’m not saying no community would benefit, but I would be shocked if there is a majority of users of IPS communities using android such that we are at a point where the dev team investing is PWA development makes sense. 

[aia]

Stable PWA on iOS is just a matter of time, they already working on all known bugs.

BTW, stats on my forums:

Edited October 1, 2018 by Mr 13

[Morgin]

2 hours ago, Mr 13 said:

Stable PWA on iOS is just a matter of time, they already working on all known bugs.

BTW, stats on my forums:

They aren’t working on push from all accounts. 

[RevengeFNF]

On 9/29/2018 at 6:09 PM, Morgin said:

PWAs are not supported in a form that is beneficial to >50% of mobile traffic and until apple embraces it, it will never be more than a niche technology. I'm not saying apple is this important, it's just that in markets where a lot of us have large forums, our users are predominantly apple/iOS users.

It depends. On my case for example, Google Analytics shows me that for the mobile users, 26,51% enter with an iOS device and the rest with Android. So the vast majority in my case are Android users.

I also reached the point where my forum have more people visiting it with a mobile phone than a computer.

[Steve Bullman]

On 10/1/2018 at 3:23 PM, bfarber said:

We are not ignoring this topic. We just haven't commented is all.

Throw us a bone mate 🙂

[Morgin]

39 minutes ago, RevengeFNF said:

It depends. On my case for example, Google Analytics shows me that for the mobile users, 26,51% enter with an iOS device and the rest with Android. So the vast majority in my case are Android users.

I also reached the point where my forum have more people visiting it with a mobile phone than a computer.

I’m not sure I agree that 74.5% constitutes a vast majority, but otherwise point taken. 

[Fast Lane!]

Just to chime in on "monetization" (which I hope we all agree is important).  I was over at Google the other week for a publisher meeting and the topic came up.  BLUF, PWAs are challenging to monetize well.  In the end, this is a serious consideration for any publisher and not something to be ignored (or risked) chasing trends.  They were supportive of PWA but urged caution.

Edited October 3, 2018 by Fast Lane!

[RevengeFNF]

14 hours ago, Morgin said:

I’m not sure I agree that 74.5% constitutes a vast majority, but otherwise point taken. 

My point is, will we ignore many Android users just because iOS don't support mobile notifications?

[Day_]

1 hour ago, RevengeFNF said:

My point is, will we ignore many Android users

Yes. I've been doing this for years both online and socially. 😆

[andrewbiggs]

On 10/1/2018 at 9:23 PM, bfarber said:

We are not ignoring this topic. We just haven't commented is all.

Hi bfarber,

So are IPS supporting this project, or is there another app solution recommendation except for the Tapatalk App?

Do you/IPS mind to comment on this? @Charles

[SammyS]

"...generating the manifest file lays the groundwork for future PWA (Progressive Web App) development and support. Additionally, some Android devices will automatically prompt users to add your website to their home screen now that a manifest file is generated by the site"

 

 

[TheWorldNewsMedia.org]

On 10/1/2018 at 7:23 AM, bfarber said:

We are not ignoring this topic. We just haven't commented is all.

That is a good sign.... it means you are actually pondering what we are asking for.. ;-)

I know it is a big job... but it would blow away ALL competition.

If you added a PWA, real-time private messaging, your platform would begin to leave all the others in the dust.

[Gill]

Hi Guys check out this. More Goods news coming from google for PWA FUTURE 🙂 

 

PWA NATIVE FEATURE

[TheWorldNewsMedia.org]

My 16 year old niece was about to use a page on my site a year ago... and then again a few weeks ago. Each time should would go to the responsive web page, look at it, get somewhat excited about the idea and then instantly look up at me and ask "Do you have a web app?" ..... She hasn't posted once. 😒

 

[tonyv]

I'd like to go on the record: an app is neither necessary nor desirable. Sixteen year old girls? Yes, I like 'em, but it's not part of my target demographic.

[Cyboman]

1 hour ago, tonyv said:

I'd like to go on the record: an app is neither necessary nor desirable.

What record? Different community admins, different opinions, different use cases. I'd like to see more ambitions concerning progressive web app development, and app look & feel styling as well as all the other benefits granted by apps. My target demographic members are young people that prefer apps. I'd be willing to pay my share if someone will come up with a longterm-supported solution. I really hope this will happen one day. 🍾🥂💥

[Joel R]

While different communities may have different demographics that tend to use one device over another, the underlying global trend is clear.  Mobile use is increasing. In 2017, it surpassed desktop use for the first time. It now makes up the majority of global traffic, and in developed countries, the use is even higher.  

WHAT PERCENTAGE OF ONLINE TRAFFIC IS MOBILE?

In 2018, 52.2% of all worldwide online traffic was generated through mobile phones, up from 50.3% in the previous year (Statista, 2018)

57% of all U.S. online traffic now comes from smartphones and tablets (BrightEdge, 2017)

https://www.bluecorona.com/blog/mobile-marketing-statistics

I actually think any UIX decisions from here on out by IPS need to be judged in the context of mobile first. 

[Tom S.]

2 hours ago, Joel R said:

I actually think any UIX decisions from here on out by IPS need to be judged in the context of mobile first. 

Agreed. It almost needs to be that desktop and mobile use two different themes, different JavaScript, etc.

A good example is the release notes page:

Works pretty well on desktop but is awful on mobile, because it was built using this widely used responsive design tactic of just collapsing everything on top of each other.

Edited January 5, 2019 by Tom S.

[masterkya]

We looking to get the native apps for our projects which in theory so far cost about $4800 and is still building up. 

Once we will have the apps demo ( Android & IOS ) we may sell them here, if enough interest. 

 

 

[David..]

I'm in for a mobile app for IPS. PWA is good, but they don't support notifications on iOS.

-edit-

PWA on iOS is pretty bad really. Maybe it can improve on future iOS versions but we can't really rely on PWAs for iOS right now.

Edited January 7, 2019 by David..