Convert your WordPress blog into a mobile app for free

If you’re already an expert in “Progressive Web Apps” and you already have a mobile app version of your WP blog or non-WP blog, then this post is not for you. For those who don’t have a clue what I’m talking about, Progressive Web Apps or PWAs are web applications that are regular websites, but can appear to the user like native mobile applications, but it doesn’t consume that much precious space in your mobile device compared to native apps. You’ll save around 99.9% of storage in your smartphone. You don’t need to update it and it’s blazing fast.

PWA attempts to combine features offered by most modern browsers with the benefits of a mobile experience. As of 2 months ago, PWAs are supported by the following browsers: Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, UC, Opera, and Samsung Internet for Android. In the next few months, or perhaps, weeks, Safari on iOS will also support PWAs. Just google “Progressive web apps(PWAs) are coming to a Safari near you by Prathik S Shetty” or “PWAs are coming to iOS 11.3: Cupertino, we have a problem by Maximiliano Firtman”.

If you want to know more about PWA, just click this link: https://developers.google.com/web/progressive-web-apps/

If you’ve read the entire intro and clicked Get Started and you went to this page, https://codelabs.developers.google.com/codelabs/your-first-pwapp/, you probably said (in your mind) that, “whew, this is a lot to digest, maybe next time when I’m not busy”. But fear not, you don’t need to digest it all and know more about those Service Workers, Manifest and Application shell architecture. If you have a WordPress blog like mine, all you need to do is install this WordPress plugin, (make sure your website is https enabled already), then fill up the details in Settings > Super PWA, then Save Settings.

This plugin will magically generate your manifest.json.

Next step is, oh wait. There’s no next step. You’re already done! Just check your blog in your Android phone and you can easily add it to your homescreen.

That’s it. You now have a mobile app version of your WordPress blog. And yes, no need to pay anything to anyone. It’s free! Enjoy!