Microsoft and Google team up to create Progressive Web Apps (PWAs)

Microsoft and Google are coming up together to help web developers get their Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) into the Google Play Store.

Progressive web apps use emerging web browser APIs and features, along with traditional progressive enhancement strategy, to bring native app-like user experience to cross-platform web applications. It is similar to Android’s “Instant Apps” which doesn’t require installation; it is just a small part of an app intended for testing.

Microsoft's PWABuilder and Google's Bubblewrap are now allowing full-fledged android apps built with very less coding bases upon web APIs. While PWABuilder.com is Microsoft's open-source development tool that helps build high-quality PWAs and publish them in app stores. Bubblewrap is Google's command-line utility and library to generate and sign Google Play Store packages from Progressive Web Apps.

From the PWABuilder website, developers can customize the appearance of the Android status bar and navigation bar, customize Android splash-screen, change launcher name, use an existing sign-in key, and more.

"We are working together to make the web a more capable app platform. In addition to the above, we're also collaborating with Google on Project Fugu to incubate new web platform features," said Microsoft's Judah Gabriel Himango.