I'm OK with that. Web apps are clunkier and provide a worse experience. That Google makes this easier speaks to the sort of UX you get with Android.
Chicken and eggs argument here: web apps are clunkier and provide a worse experience because they are not well supported by the OS or the OS does not provide better support for web apps because they provide a worse experience?
Hybrid app frameworks exist because phone operational systems lack proper support for web applications.
No, they are clunkier and provide a worse experience, because most "web apps" are ported version of desktop bloatware, targeting devices, permanently plugged into wall-mounted electric outlet.
What are "web applications" anyway? Something, that requires permanent internet connectivity? Something with DOM APIs? Something with built-in Javascript interpreter? Something with CSS support? The defining qualities of "web" have absolutely nothing to do with mobile devices. If anything, "web" has bad supported for OS. This is why all hybrid frameworks are about exposing additional OS functionality to browser, not the other way around.
Just accept, that you are looking at wrong tool for the job.
And if we care about freedom and the opened web, we should not cheer on proprietary, closed platforms like app stores. We should want the opened web to win.
Shame on developers for cargo culting web apps over to various mobile platforms. Even on desktop platforms, non-native apps stick out like a sore thumb and generally work poorly (e.g. Slack). Granted I'm okay with my apps not doing autoplay video regardless of whether or not they're native.
> And if we care about freedom and the opened web, we should not cheer on proprietary, closed platforms like app stores. We should want the opened web to win.
How about the freedom to be rid of phishing apps and spyware? The "opened web" is not an all or nothing idea, and promoting web "apps" over proper native apps isn't a win.
1. That's where users are. We've trained a generation of users to find apps in app stores.
2. Some mobile platforms (read: iOS) are hostile to web apps. For example, Apple doesn't let you play audio in the background on iOS. (Or rather, they suspend JS execution if the web app is in the background, or if the screen is off. Thus, you can play exactly a single MP3, then my media player app will stop playing music unless it's still in the fore, which is a show-stopper.) This is just one of dozens of issues with web audio in iOS Safari; I've documented more here[0].
Native apps have no such restriction. Thus, packaging my PWA as an app got around all these restrictions. Plus it lets me integrate with the OS, for example, by showing the currently-playing song name, artist, album, art, etc. on the lock screen.
[0]: http://debuggerdotbreak.judahgabriel.com/2016/12/13/its-almo...