The Appshare PWA is an archive with files which must be hosted somewhere. It is downloaded to the device when the website is visited. It is called a PWA (Progressive Web App), because it is more then a classic web application.
Whenever you go to a website, it’s up-to-date, and your experience with that site can be as ephemeral or as permanent as you would like. Web applications can reach anyone, anywhere, on any device and operating systems. The web mix of ubiquity across devices and operating systems, its user-centered security model, and the fact that neither its specification nor its implementation are controlled by a single company makes the web a unique platform to develop software on.
Platform-specific applications are known for being incredibly rich and reliable. They’re ever-present, on home screens, docks, and taskbars. They work regardless of network connection. They launch in their own standalone experience. They can read and write files from the local file system, access hardware connected via USB, serial port, or bluetooth, and even interact with data stored on your device, such as contacts and calendar events. In these applications, you can do things such as take pictures, see playing songs listed on the home screen, or control song playback while in another app. Platform-specific applications feel like part of the device they run on.
If you think about platform-specific apps and web apps in terms of capabilities and reach, platform-specific apps represent the best of capabilities whereas web apps represent the best of reach. Progressive Web Apps (PWA) are built and enhanced with modern APIs to deliver enhanced capabilities, reliability, and installability while reaching anyone, anywhere, on any device.
The Appshare PWA can run on any device and operating system and can be accessed anywhere. It is optimized to run on mobile devices and more specific barcode scanners. It adjusts to the screen size and capabilities of the device. It can be installed on the home screen of the operating system and run as a separate process with more permissions than the browser security context.
As with platform-specific apps, the Appshare PWA keeps on working when it loses network connectivity to the Appshare Services and Appshare PWA hosting. In this partly offline mode, it can still be used to connect to your customer services.