Hello fellow TVmazers,
Over the years we've gotten the question 'do you have an app?' quite a few times.
And today we can say 'YES. Well kind of...'
We've created a 'progressive web app'.
'A progressive what?' you might be asking yourself.
So... What is a PWA?
'Progressive Web Apps are web applications that load like regular web pages or websites but can offer the user functionality such as working offline, push notifications, and device hardware access traditionally available only to native mobile applications'
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Web_Apps
PWAs aren’t yet mainstream. But with the range of benefits they provide, you’ll hear about them a lot more in the future.
Our first step has been to make TVmaze available just like your typical app. Currently we're not taking advantage of features such as push notifications.
We had some internal discussions on what features we'd like to provide but ultimately we decided to prioritize based on community feedback.
How do I get a PWA on my phone or tablet?
PWAs are not deployed to the Google Play Store or App Store. If you go to your browser menu, you'll generally see an 'Add to Homescreen' option.
Image 1(chrome,Edge), Image 2(Firefox)
After clicking on it, you'll see the TVmaze icon on your homescreen.
That's it! Just click on the icon and track your shows.
As always, should you have any questions or suggestions, don't hesitate to post them. We'd love to hear your thoughts.
cheers,
Jan & David
@lao.san it seems Apple is lagging behind on pwa adoption. It added initial PWA support in iOS 11.3 on march 2018. Unfortunately iOS 12 doesn't seem to have improved the support in any significant way. You can read more about it here:
Progressive Web Apps on iOS are here https://medium.com/@firt/progressive-web-apps-on-ios-are-here-d00430dee3a7
A quote from the link relevant to your issue.
'But if there is no App Store, how do you install a PWA? ⚠️
That’s one of the most significant challenges on iOS as there will be no prompts or invitations from Safari (known as Web App Banners on Android). So the user has to go to your PWA URL somehow within Safari and then manually press the Share icon and then “Add to Home Screen.” There will be no indication that a website you are visiting is a PWA.'
Does not seem to work on any browser (Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Brave, Safari) on iOS 12. That is I cannot find the "add to home screen" functionality.
The "App" looks good. Could you add an option on which page the app should start. For example I would like the App to open the Watchlist on start up, because I use this the most
Done!! Gracias...
I am going to try this right now
Thanks to all those who worked on it! :)
Finally!
Lovely <3
Push notifications for premieres maybe?
this works like charm and looks and feels much better than just using the website in chrome :D