• Windows Phone Area
• On February 7, 2018

The Windows Store will grow thanks to PWA

Microsoft shared more details about its plans to bring the Progressive Web Apps (PWA) to the Windows Store this Spring. Windows 10 version 1803 (Redstone 4) will support the PWAs installable from the Store. These apps will act like native Windows 10 UWP apps with support for push notifications, Cortana and Live Tiles. Microsoft explains in a blog post: 

Technologically speaking, PWAs are web apps, progressively enhanced with modern web technologies (Service Worker, Fetch networking, Cache API, Push notifications, Web App Manifest) to provide a more app-like experience.

Unlike a “packaged” web app experience, PWAs are hosted on your servers and can be updated without issuing new updates to an app store. Additionally, new web standards (such as Service Worker) enable interoperable ways to implement push notifications, support for offline scenarios, background refreshing, and more, without platform-specific code.

In the next release of Windows 10, we intend to begin listing PWAs in the Microsoft Store. Progressive Web Apps installed via the Microsoft Store will be packaged as an appx in Windows 10 – running in their own sandboxed container, without the visual or resource overhead of the browser.

The company encourages developers to test and publish their apps in the Store, but in addition, Microsoft will automatically index and publish selected quality apps in the Windows Store. Microsoft has reviewed around 1.5 million candidates so far, but only the most good ones will be published in the store in the coming weeks.

Redmond-based software relies on PWAs to expand the Windows 10 Store, but UWP apps remain the main priority. Unfortunately, PWAs won’t work on Windows 10 Mobile, as the company is not planning to upgrade the current smartphones to the 1803 Spring update.