PWA is definitely great for developers and users. But I often see users asking for native apps even when they're using PWA at hand. They say "It's more convenience to have app version".
I'd argue that many people wouldn't know wether they were looking at a PWA or a native application written in a JS container format (like react-native).
I can't think of a way that native apps are more convenient? With automatic updates it's even less convenient to have the updates go through the app store.
They may not distinct visually, but iPhone user without chrome can definitely tell.
I totally agree with you, I developed a PWA and 'native app' which is mostly an webview of the same content. I often use the PWA version but it seems most (if not all) of my users are using the app version even when the app stores approve updates in a notifiable slower rate.
My native app do used some native plugin, but those functions are not often used by the users. So I feel they just blindly ask for apps.
Maybe they think native app loads faster than PWA?
People don't want to wait for a SPA first-time loading but they won't blame the download and install time of native apps.
I don't think it's necessarily convenience. PWAs are loved by developers but they kind of suck for usrs. Native apps should use less battery, memory, and cpu. On a desktop machine, that might not be a big deal, but it is on mobile.
> Native apps are loved by developers but they kind of suck for usrs.
Don’t you mean to say the opposite? Most proponents of PWA’s I see are devs claiming that writing native apps is too hard, but most users prefer native apps because of better integration and performance/efficiency.
