Choosing the Right Devices for Appshare Applications

We often receive questions about the best devices to use with Appshare applications. While the ideal device depends on your specific application and its intended use, here are some general guidelines to help you choose:

Browser Compatibility:

Appshare is a Progressive Web Application (PWA), meaning it runs in a web browser. This provides flexibility, but it’s important to choose a compatible browser. Any recent modern browser will work.

We regularly test Appshare on the latests versions of the following browsers:

• Chromium based – Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave
• Safari (both iOS and macOS)
• Firefox
• Android Chrome WebView – Velocity and SOTi Surf

Scanner Device Recommendations:

Since Appshare runs directly on the scanning device, adequate processing power and memory are crucial for optimal performance. We recommend using devices with the following specifications:

• Processor: 2.0 GHz quad-core processor or better
• RAM: At least 2GB

Important Note about Browsers on Android: We’ve observed some issues with browsers build on top of the android webview. To avoid potential problems, we recommend installing Google Chrome and using it as the default browser for Appshare. See below for more technical details.

We have successfully tested apps on a Zebra TC8000 (dual core 1.7 GHz processor), demonstrating that Appshare can run on slightly lower-spec devices that meet our RAM recommendation. The performance depends which software is installed and what the app needs to do.

Device Brands:

Our customers are successfully using Appshare on various warehouse scanning devices from leading manufacturers, including:

• Honeywell
• Zebra
• Casio
• Chainway
• Keyence

Mobile Phone as a Scanning Device:

Because most people have powerful smartphones, you might consider using a mobile phone with a connected barcode scanner. Appshare does support camera-based scanning on your phone, but for speed and efficiency, we recommend using a dedicated, purpose-built barcode scanner. Small, portable barcode scanners that connect directly to your phone are readily available and provide a good alternative. Simply connecting a small barcode scanners to your mobile phone is a great option.

Android Browsers

Every browser displays web content from a site. Web content consists of markup (html), style (css) and behavior (javascript). Traditionally, a site generated markup and style on the server and the browser rendered the web content. With a PWA, like Appshare, most of the generation of markup and style happens in the browser by javascript and does not need a server component. This asks more from the engine which the browser uses.

A browser application on Android can implement its own engine or use what the Android OS provides. Firefox, Opera and Chrome implemented their own engine while the native browser, SOTI surf and Velocity use what Android provides.

Android Webview

From the beginning, Android offers a component called “Webview” that allows applications to display web content. However, it’s important to understand that Android Webview was not originally designed as a full-fledged browser replacement. While many custom browser applications rely on Webview to render web pages, it has historically had limitations in functionality and performance, particularly with its JavaScript engine. Earlier versions of Android Webview were known for inefficient memory management.

Improvements to Android Webview

Over time, Android has introduced improvements to address these limitations. One significant addition is the option to use a Chromium-based Webview. This leverages the same powerful rendering engine found in Google Chrome, offering substantial performance gains. However, the choice of which Webview implementation is used as the System Webview ultimately depends on the device manufacturer. These changes happened during the Android 5, 6 and 7 releases.

Impact of MDM Browsers

Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions like SOTI and Velocity often include their own built-in browsers. The SOTI surf browser, for instance, is built on top of the Android WebView System. Similarly, the Velocity browser also relies on the Android WebView System. If the device manufacturer has not opted for the Chromium-based Webview, applications running within these MDM browsers might inherit the performance limitations of the older Android Webview. This can lead to Appshare performing suboptimally.

Trusted Web Activities (TWA) for Improved Performance

Android also offers Trusted Web Activities (TWA) as a way to package and run Progressive Web Applications (PWAs) like Appshare. TWA acts as a container, allowing a PWA to be the main activity within an Android app. Crucially, TWA leverages the device’s default browser to render the PWA in full-screen mode. This ensures that the PWA benefits from the same web platform features, API compatibility, and, importantly, the same high-performance JavaScript engine as the default browser. The SOTI web app publishing option is an example of using TWA. When used in this way, the site is shown in the default browser, which usually results in much better performance.

Recommendations

If you are experiencing slow performance with Appshare on an Android device managed by an MDM solution, we recommend investigating the following:

• Identify the Webview Implementation: Determine whether the device is using the older Android Webview or the newer, Chromium-based version. This information can often be found in the device’s settings.
• Deployment Method: If using SOTI or a similar MDM, explore the different web application deployment methods. Opting for the “Web App Publishing” option (TWA) that utilizes the device’s default browser is likely to yield better performance.
• Ensure Default Browser is up to date: Ensure the default browser used by the device is a modern browser with a performant JavaScript engine, such as Google Chrome.

Conclusion

Understanding the nuances of how Android handles web content and how MDM solutions interact with these mechanisms is essential for optimizing Appshare’s performance on mobile devices. By carefully considering the factors outlined above, you can significantly improve the user experience. If you continue to experience performance issues, please contact our support team for further assistance. We are committed to helping you get the most out of Appshare.