Comment by burtonator | Hacker News Reader

Comment by burtonator | Hacker News Reader

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I'm really torn here between React Native and just building a PWA.

I'm building a tool for managing your reading across devices. IT basically allows you to suspend and resume your reading easily and supports caching web pages offline and reading them like you would a PDF.

https://getpolarized.io/

Right now I'm torn between a PWA and React Native.

Our PWA code is React, just not react native.

Being a PWA means I don't have to deal with React Native issues and I can keep the same code across my entire app.

The changes that Microsoft has made to their app store to support PWAs are really nice.

Additionally Google has their new 'custom web view' that allows you to compile a PWA into an Android App.

Part of the whole thing with the app store is being discoverable.

You might be a PWA but people are taught to go to the app store to find new apps to install.

However, with React Native I think you would have to do a bit more work but your app would look better on that platform.

Has anyone had to make this decision lately? Would love to hear your feedback.

Hey, it depends on what you are building. I have found with React Native + Expo is that you can mostly avoid native code until you need something that isn't supported by React Native (eg. payment integration) - in that case you will need to eject the app. You would have to manage routing on the app, etc.

If your background is in web dev, building a PWA should be much easier.

When did google hijack the PWA term? https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps/

It used to just mean you would build on standard html features so your app would fallback to it and still work if your crazy new JS driven input type didn't work the way you expected, and for accessibility purposes. I don't see either of those goals mentioned.

That sounds to me like you are describing "Progressive Enhancement", PWA's are different. To answer your question, according to Wikipedia the name got coined in 2015. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_applications

Sounds to me like you are right.

What’s the name of your app again?

Polar: https://getpolarized.io/

FYI I've reported that url to AdBlock

Why?

I've seen them drop the name numerous times before. I have no problem with Polar (other than it not working for me at all), but constantly seeing the link dropped makes it feel a bit Ad-y and, especially on HN, people tend to distrust /be annoyed by people doing this.

I would also like to query why? I even looked through the code to check for any malicious code and came up empty handed.

Have you considered Cordova/PhoneGap? Do you need native features?

I think if you're a small developer, having something that works across iOS, Android and the web with the least effort is usually worth more than native integration.

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