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International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies

WEBIST 2017: Web Information Systems and Technologies pp 64–86Cite as

Progressive Web Apps for the Unified Development of Mobile Applications

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Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing ((LNBIP,volume 322))

Abstract

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) allow for web applications to be developed in an offline-first approach. While Web apps traditionally did not properly function without an Internet connection, PWAs enable them to be downloaded, installed and used offline on various systems, including mobile devices and personal computers. We present an introduction to the state-of-art in research and practice. Based on this, we discuss various underlying concepts and technologies. Then, we scrutinize and compare PWAs against cross-platform app development approaches on both technical and overarching aspects. A list of suggestions for future research is also presented. We urge academia to keep up with the latest trends within the field of mobile and web development, as new concepts and approaches such as Progressive Web Apps now make for interesting research topics with tangible real-world effects.

This paper greatly extends the short paper [1] presented at WEBIST 2017. It has been updated to reflect the latest developments, includes new content based on additional work as well as on the discussions at the conference, and has been amended with a comprehensive discussion. Please note that verbatim content from the short paper is not explicitly highlighted but for figures and tables already included there.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    https://github.com/andreasbhansen/pwa-paper.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Technology, Westerdals Oslo ACT, Oslo, Norway

    Andreas Biørn-Hansen & Tor-Morten Grønli

  2. ERCIS, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

    Tim A. Majchrzak

Authors
  1. Andreas Biørn-Hansen
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  2. Tim A. Majchrzak
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  3. Tor-Morten Grønli
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Andreas Biørn-Hansen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Agder, Kristiansand, Vest-Agder Fylke, Norway

    Tim A. Majchrzak

  2. Center for Information Technology, FBK-ICT irst, Trento, Italy

    Paolo Traverso

  3. RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Karl-Heinz Krempels

  4. University of Paris 1, Paris, France

    Valérie Monfort

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Biørn-Hansen, A., Majchrzak, T.A., Grønli, TM. (2018). Progressive Web Apps for the Unified Development of Mobile Applications. In: Majchrzak, T., Traverso, P., Krempels, KH., Monfort, V. (eds) Web Information Systems and Technologies. WEBIST 2017. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol 322. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93527-0_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93527-0_4

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