I recently wrote a blog post about the future of app development focusing on the recent improvements to the mobile API and to Google’s pioneering service worker technology. The new technologies – being driven by Google – enable developers to create web based JavaScript applications for Android (and soon Apple and Microsoft) phones, that will allow users to install web applications to their home screens like native phone apps.
At the end of the post, I asked whether this could be the end for native app development. I have yet to develop the ability to predict the future, but I’ve been having some interesting conversations around this topic recently, and in today’s blog I want to share some thoughts with you…
For me, the first part of this question is whether companies will buy into the idea of PWAs in the first place – after all, PWAs will not replace native apps until app companies start building them. CloudFour wrote an interesting article about the solid business case for creating PWAs. I don’t see why companies would not start building PWAs – after all, they already have JavaScript developers, and most of the hard work is in building the mobile web version of their application. So why not add a service worker and turn it into a PWA?
So let’s say companies do start building PWAs. The next question is, will consumers start using them? The first problem I foresee here is in users’ knowledge of available apps. Currently, if you want a new app, you go to the app store for your operating system which provides a comprehensive list of available apps, with those from smaller app companies having as good a chance of their app being found as more established companies. With PWAs being installed direct from the web application, there is no longer any need for an app store. Perhaps this will mean that the app store changes from the only place you can get apps to a search engine for PWAs.
The app store serves a second purpose: validation. With either Google or Apple’s app store, your app must be authorised in order to be listed. Users can trust in the app they are installing. They know the app does not contain anything malicious, and that it has been screened. Giving any JavaScript developer with the know-how the ability to trigger an app install request on your phone from their website takes away this trust. It was suggested to me that perhaps app stores might attempt to solve this problem by listing PWAs that have been checked.
This poses another question: why would app stores do this? Apple made $28 billion of revenue from the app store in 2016, with Google making about $9 billion. With that much money on the line, why would Google risk the future of native apps? On the one hand, Google likes to push the boundaries of technology – to be at the forefront of digital development – but at a cost of $9 billion?
A large portion of the revenue generated by app stores comes from paid for apps, where the store takes a percentage of the download price. PWAs remove the ability to force users to pay for the download, eliminating that revenue. A possible alternative could be for app stores to create a simple to use payment gateway API that app developers can integrate into their PWAs, so that users can download the application for free, but pay to access its content in the same way that companies like The Financial Times already do. This would allow Apple and Google to still take their cut of the fee – just at a later stage.
Another way that app stores could continue to generate revenue is to charge developers to list apps. Without the app store, it would be virtually impossible for a small, relatively unknown developer without a large marketing budget to generate PWA downloads. Having one central repository for all available apps with ratings and user reviews gives developers the opportunity for their apps to become known. Charging for this privilege is one possible future revenue stream. Of course, how asking app developers to pay for something that is currently free might go down remains to be seen.
While global app downloads are increasing year on year, the most popular apps are actually decreasing in downloads according to comscore. With the increasing functionality of web applications like Facebook and Twitter, their native apps are becoming less and less popular.
So, overall, where does this leave us? No one really knows. I don’t think it is very likely that PWAs will completely abolish app stores. As a revenue stream they are far too important to Google and Apple, not to mention how convenient it is for consumers to have access to all available apps in one place. However, I do believe that PWAs will begin to take over a large share of the free app market, particularly for popular apps such as news readers and social media. From both a user and a business perspective, PWAs make far more sense, with the smaller download size and the ability to create one Javascript application to serve two purposes. Personally, I can’t wait!
