Friday Twitter replaced it much neglected Windows native app with a progressive web app version. They are not the first app to leverage progressive web apps in the Windows store, but they are one of the first to have a public announcement.

Twitter announced last May at Google I/O it was launching Twitter Lite, a Progressive Web App (PWA) version of the twitter client.

At the conference they also shared some statistics from their intial trials:

• 65% increase in pages per session
• 75% increase in Tweets sent
• 20% decrease in bounce rate

These increased engagements numbers are not unusual. When you make an intentional effort to deliver a better user experience your customers they respond by giving you more attention.

I have been using the Twitter PWA on my Android since it was released. It works great!

To be fair I would have used the twitter web client anyway.

The Twitter PWA Technicals

I decided to check out how Twitter implemented the web manifest and service worker. I was expecting to see a special home page references in the web manifest file. But that was not the case.

{ "background_color": "#ffffff", "description": "It's what's happening. From breaking news and entertainment, sports and politics, to big events and everyday interests.", "display": "standalone", "gcmsenderid": "49625052041", "gcmuservisible_only": true, "icons": [{ "src": "https://abs-0.twimg.com/responsive-web/web/ltr/icon-default.882fa4ccf6539401.png", "sizes": "192x192", "type": "image/png"} ], "name": "Twitter Lite", "orientation": "portrait", "share_target": { "url_template": "compose/tweet?title={title}&text={text}&url={url}" }, "short_name": "Twitter Lite", "start_url": "/", "theme_color": "#ffffff", "scope": "/"}

#progressive web app