HACKER Q&A
📣 vivegi

Is a PWA Superapp/appstore viable?


Apple, Google and Microsoft who are platform gatekeepers seem to have a very tight hold on their app stores and levy app store fees although some of this is attracting antitrust/legal contests.

Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) came a few years ago and one of the features is the Add to Home Screen that adds the website as an icon on the device's home screen.

Much of the difficulty with PWAs comes from the poor user experience of installability across the major platforms with each one having its quirks and idiosyncrasies.

Is it possible to build a native app for the three platforms that wraps the standard PWA functionality and provide appstore like features such as Discoverability, Alternative payments etc., without falling afoul of the platform Terms of Use/Service?

I am thinking of a simple website (also a PWA) which links to other websites with categories, search etc., (discovery) and a native app that wraps that website content and providing a standard PWA installability experience (add to Home Screen).

  👤 vivegi Accepted Answer ✓
The MVP would be a native app with the following two core features: a) Directory of PWAs: User submits the link to their PWA and we read their manifest.json to populate the directory information for the app. The directory is categorized and searchable b) Cross-platform standard install PWA experience: One-click standard install to Home Screen on all platforms
👤 adityar
Sorry for the grim outlook - I think you will get shutdown by the app store once they see this as a way to install unapproved apps (or more importantly, hurt their 30% tax)