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Windows 10 Will Soon Get Progressive Web Apps To Boost the Microsoft Store (techradar.com)
The next major update to Windows 10 will bring Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) to the Microsoft Store. PWAs are websites (or web apps) which are implemented as native apps, and delivered just like a normal app through Windows 10's store. According to TechRadar, "The big advantages are that no platform-specific code is required, allowing devs to make apps that run across different platforms, and that PWAs are hosted on the developer's server, so can be updated directly from there (without having to push updates to the app store)." The other benefit for Microsoft is that they will be getting a bunch of new apps in Windows 10's store. From the report: As Microsoft explains in a blog post, these new web apps are built on a raft of nifty technologies -- including Service Worker, Fetch networking, Push notifications and more -- all of which will be enabled when EdgeHTML 17 (the next version of the rendering engine that powers the Edge browser) goes live in Windows 10 in the next big update. PWAs can be grabbed from the Microsoft Store as an AppX file, and will run in their own sandboxed container, without needing the browser to be open at all. As far as the user is concerned, they'll be just like any other app downloaded from the store. Microsoft says it is already experimenting with crawling and indexing PWAs from the web to pick out the quality offerings, which it will draft into the Microsoft Store. The firm has already combed through some 1.5 million web apps to pick out a small selection of PWAs for initial testing. As well as discovering apps via web crawling, developers will also be able to submit their offerings directly to Microsoft for approval.
Frankly, I'm webbed out. I'm apped out. I'm tired of being the dumping ground for corporate bullshit.
Comparitively, gopher and ftp weren't that bad at all.
Seriously.
I like having a computer that I can use when not connected to the internet, 'forever'. Not one that can't deal with that.
Then Windows is not for you. I'll be very surprised if it continues to even boot without an internet connection for much longer.
Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) are essentially web sites where JavaScript and some relatively modern browser APIs are used to store parts of the site locally on the device after it's been downloaded. This allows the site to "load" again later even if the user is offline or has a bad connection, to cache some data on the client side, to store pending data ready to be uploaded automatically when a good connection is available again, etc. You can also do things like adding an icon to load the site to your home screen on a mobile device. In essence, you can create something that is really a web site, but enhanced to work more like a native app.
Android/Chrome has supported most of the relevant technologies for quite a while and pretty much all of them in recent versions. Apparently Edge is getting there now too. iOS/Safari is a long way behind.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.