Yesterday, we saw the first batch of Progressive Web Apps (PWA) make their way to the Microsoft Store on Windows 10. Before that, Twitter also converted its app to PWA, moving away from the UWP. This made many believe that PWAs would be Microsoft’s solution to the app gap on its mobile platform, however, that doesn’t appear to be entirely true.
In a tweet, the Senior Program Manager for Microsoft Edge, Kyle Pflug, confirmed that while PWAs do work on Windows 10 Mobile, they will not support all features. Additionally, developers do not have to support Windows 10 Mobile, and if history tells us anything, they probably won’t.
Twitter is currently in beta now just for Insider Fast. Whether a dev deploys to mobile is up to them – certain features like Push and Service Worker won’t work on in-market W10M devices.
— Kyle Pflug (@kylealden) April 7, 2018
For those who were hoping PWAs would fix at least some of Windows 10 Mobile’s problems, we’re afraid that’s not the case. It may go some way, as some developers may choose to support Microsoft’s mobile platform, but the evidence of that happening just isn’t there.
