Developing Progressive Web Applications with Angular: How to Build and Deploy Mobile Applications without Paying Apple or Google for the Privilege: Angular Advocate, #2

By Michael D Callaghan

Forget the App Stores!

They are too expensive: While Google only charges a one-time $25 fee to join, Apple charges $99/year just for the privilege of hosting your apps there. And even if you are willing to pay, those companies still have veto power over the content of your application.

 

It's time to say no.

 

As a software developer, you want your apps to reach as many people as possible, right? Which platform should you target to reach the most users possible? How about all of them? Progressive Web Apps, or PWAs, let you do just that... and without paying a Google or Apple to be in their stores.

In this book, I'll show you how to take an Angular application and deploy it to the web as a Progressive Web Application. This will make it easy for you to target the web, iOS, and Android, all at the same time, without ever asking Google or Apple for permission.

 

By the end of this book, you should have all the knowledge and confidence you need to deploy your own PWA that all your potential users can enjoy.

 

What Others Are Saying

Greg M. on Amazon ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I have built one PWA prior to reading this book. I found the process before to be quite daunting. Having all of the steps in one easy to read reference makes it seem so much more simple than I thought before. Seeing how difficult it is to get into the app stores these days, this seems like a much better option! The book is very engaging and includes lessons learned that the author went through. One of the many things that makes this book stand out to me is that the author even includes a sample application you can use to get going quickly in how to set up a PWA. If you already have an application written in Angular, or in Ionic, this book will give you exactly what you need to get it hosted as a PWA that your users can "install" on their home screens. I highly recommend this if you are just as frustrated as I am with getting apps distributed through apps stores!

 

Claudio Del Valle Cabello on Amazon ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I've been building applications with Ionic and Angular for a couple of years. By now, the process is almost automatic. I know where to look and can point out just about all usual pitfalls one might encounter along the way. However, the very fact that the process is almost second nature precluded me from understanding some parts that either previous documentation and tutorials allowed me to complete by following the steps, or that I have repeated countless times and forgotten what they were actually doing. Furthermore, the format of this book lays out the commands, sections of code, and strategies of building a PWA in a way that gives you a holistic understanding of what you need to know plus guidance if you want to look further into a particular topic. I highly recommend reading the book all the way through, even if you already have an existing PWA, but if you need a quick reference it's easy to find things and jump around the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michael Callaghan
• Release date: Jan 25, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201419233

Michael D Callaghan

I began learning to program computers way back in 1981 in High School. The Data Processing teacher took pity on a young 9th grader and let me borrow time on the county's HP 2000 to teach myself BASIC. That experience grew into a passion for software development that has never waned.  Though my early career took a 10-year detour, I finally began writing software professionally in 1995. I've been doing that ever since. 

Book preview

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

A Special Thank You!

Introduction

Introduction to Progressive Web Applications

My PWA Journey

Hosting the App

Measuring PWA Performance

Service workers

Improving Performance with Angular PWA

Service Workers and Offline Mode

Optional: Caching Data Calls

Installing a PWA on a Mobile Device

Custom Splash Screen

Application Updates

Implementing Updates in MK8R

Updates in Action

Final Considerations

Appendix: Hardware and Software Requirements

A Special Thank You!

A close up of a computer Description automatically generated

I want to let you know there is also a video course version of this book. Some people prefer a video format over books, and vice versa. I’m pleased to be able to support both.

https://walkingriver.gumroad.com/l/angular-pwa

Introduction

As a software developer, you want your apps to reach as many people as possible, right? But everyone uses a different platform: Android, iOS, desktop, web. It can be frustrating. Which platform should you target to reach the most users possible? How about all of them! Progressive Web Apps, or PWAs, let you do just that.

Throughout this book, I’ll show you how to get a Progressive Web Application off the ground with Angular and Ionic, which will make it easy for you to target the web, iOS, Android, and even desktop apps if you want.

By the end of this book, you should have all the knowledge and confidence you need to stand up a PWA that all your potential users can enjoy.

Who Should Read This Book?

I wrote this book primarily for experienced web developers, who need an extra bit of information to get their Angular apps out of the App Stores and into the hands of users.

Before you begin, I am going to assume you have the following:

Web Development experience.

A working understanding of HTML.

Experience with JavaScript or TypeScript will be helpful.

I am also assuming that you already have an Angular app that you want to host as a PWA. If you have already used Ionic, that will be helpful. I will not use much Ionic, because that is not what this book is about. But the sample app and some of the minor modifications I will make use the Ionic Framework for its UI.

Introduction to Progressive Web Applications

What is a Progressive Web App, and why should you care? You probably already have some idea, or you would not be reading this book. However, humor me a moment.

An often-overlooked topic when discussing a new technology is why should you care? This is especially important in an enterprise environment because the introduction of new things typically involves some level of risk.

New and shiny things are cool. Unfortunately, that is not enough of a reason to adopt a new technology. Fortunately, there is more to PWAs than just being the latest and greatest thing.

One of my favorite reasons to choose a PWA is that there are no app store submissions. If you are building an app for the enterprise, you may not want it distributed to users outside of your organization.

With a PWA, users install your app through a simple URL. There are other enterprise solutions for distributing internal apps, but they are often costly and sometimes more complicated than using Apple’s or Google’s submission process.

Also, by not submitting to an app store, you cannot have a faceless stranger reject your app. I actually had an app rejected by Apple because, it provided no user value. Ouch.

Another benefit is that updating a PWA is no different than updating any other web app. Your features or bug fixes can go live as quickly as your build process allows. With a PWA, you can truly target multiple platforms with a single codebase. Because a good PWA is responsive, it should look good and function well on any device: desktop, phone, or tablet. In fact, if you think about these things, PWAs help to reduce risk.

What Makes a Good PWA?

Google’s explanation of a Progressive Web App consists of a few core concepts.

A PWA should be reliable. It should hold up under difficult network conditions, including slow or even no network connectivity at all.

It should be fast-- assets such as images should be lazy loaded, and then cached on the user’s device, resulting in a short load time.

PWAs should be engaging, meaning that they should look and behave just like a native app. That includes the ability to install the app on a mobile device’s home screen.

And