For almost a decade now, the mobile web has been waiting for a performance do-over. As a web developer, I've worked on hybrid apps in the past and depending on the framework you choose, the user experience can be jarring and visibily different from a native application. It was native or die.
As an asian food connoisseur, I've developed a habit of trying new sushi restaurants wherever I go. As someone who was planning to travel during fall of 2016 between the UAE, US and Canada within the span of a month, it was the perfect opportunity to build something that made the process of finding sushi restaurants easy. The key was to keep it web and keep it lean.
That's how Progressive Web Apps came into the picture. Armed with the latest Chrome browsers on a given device, you can leverage service workers, strategic caching and more to create a native app like experience. Now, as a developer I have maximum control on the size of my app while writing them in vanilla HTML, CSS and Javascript.
After a couple weeks of tweaking and experimenting I built Sushi Hunt. Since then I've probably tried a dozen restaurants. And you can too! Just open the link below on your Android device's Chrome browser and head to settings and tap 'Add to Homescreen'.
