Native App Install Prompts are a big tool that levels this playing field, and it would be ideal to see Apple support PWAs better and offer this. Chrome on Android goes a step further, offering a Native App Install Prompt for apps for Progressive Web App (PWA) websites that meet a handful of extra criteria, like the site has been interacted with for at least 30 seconds.
It’s just a fairly “buried” feature and it’s unlikely all that many people use it. Potential Solution: Both iOS and Android have “Add to Home Screen” options for websites. Because they get an icon on the home screen of the device. But that’s not to say native apps don’t have some extremely compelling things they offer, hence this post. But in case you are unsure, there are many: it’s an open standardized platform, it will outlast closed systems, it strongly values backward compatibility, anybody can build for the web, it runs cross-platform, and heck, URLs alone are reason enough to go web-first. I’m also not getting into reasons where the web has the advantage. Nothing subjective here, like “it’s faster to develop on” or “native apps are more intuitive” or the like, which are too subjective to quantify.
I’m exclusively focusing on reasons a native app might either be a distinct advantage or at least feel like an advantage compared to a website. I’m a web guy myself, so I’m interested in seeing how the web can evolve to mitigate these concerns.
I wanted to write down what I think the reasons are here in December of 2021 so that we might revisit it from time to time in the future and see if these reasons are still relevant.