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I work in a Company and I got the task to check if it is possible to transform the current native app we are using into a Processing Web Application.

The main reason for developing a PWA is because of its offline functionality and because it will be accessible on every device (smartphone, tablet, desktop).

Native App:

The Application is about providing news, articles and different products to customers. Every customer (user) has his own profile and is only allowed to see certain products. Each product has at least one picture and at least as many documents for download.

Question:

Because there are alot of products, pictures and documents I am not sure till which point the PWA will be able to let the user see and download the pictures and documents of the products.

In best case every product will be displayed offline. Due to the large amount of products and images, it is probably not possible.

What would be a realistic amount of content that would be available offline?

When may the transformation of a native app into a pwa become problematic?

K P
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  • Be realistic about offline use. Unless your audience spends much of their time using your site in a subway tunnel, or are coal miners, most people are connected most of the time. It's a neat feature, that is not really used by most. IMHO. Pehaps consider some metrics in the current App to see how many people use the app offline. – Mathias Jan 22 '19 at 19:18
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    @Mathias You are assuming a Western, urbanized context. – wlh Jan 22 '19 at 19:53
  • KP, this question seems very broad and not specificly about programming. Perhaps reading blogs, techinical articles, or watching presentations on youtube would be better for answering this type of question. For Stack Overflow, please see: https://stackoverflow.com/help/how-to-ask – wlh Jan 22 '19 at 19:55
  • Correct @wlh, I am. That is why I suggested putting metrics in the App. – Mathias Jan 22 '19 at 20:04
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    @Mathias, Metrics are great, but your comment also suggest PWAs are not used by most. PWAs serve customers well in rural and nonWestern contexts where internet and cell phone access is spotty. – wlh Jan 22 '19 at 20:09
  • @wlh -Understood. Sorry if I misled with my comment. – Mathias Jan 22 '19 at 20:10
  • @Mathias Thanks for clarifying. Good show. – wlh Jan 22 '19 at 20:11

1 Answers1

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It looks like your main bottleneck will be offline storage. The limitations consist in 2 things there: The amount of data you can store and the persistency.

Regarding the amount, the limitations are the following at the moment:

  • Chrome <6% of free space
  • Firefox <10% of free space
  • Safari <50MB
  • IE10 <250MB
  • Edge Dependent on volume size

https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/instant-and-offline/web-storage/offline-for-pwa (Check as well the section below:Current and future offline storage work)

This is actually not a lot when it comes to images. You could however store a lower resolution of them offline and use the original resolution only when there is a connection.

Regarding persistency, the handling is not the same on different platforms, but generally vague. While chrome you meanwhile can ask for persistent storage (only the user can clear the storage, but not the system), in Safari the system can wipe your storage after a while. https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2016/06/persistent-storage

See also: Is IndexedDB on Safari guaranteed to be persistent?

Chris
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