Phone-Installed Apps (PWA) and How They Differ From Web Apps

What is a PWA, and how do I turn my site into an Android app (.apk, .aab) for the Play Store?

Two ways. A PWA is your live site on the phone home screen with its own icon, free address included. For a real app file, one press on a live site makes a signed Android app: an .apk that installs on a phone and an .aab for the Play Store. The first app is free; each build after it is 10,000 Premium Token. Publishing again updates it. The Play Store needs your own Google Play developer account.

What a PWA is, in plain words

A PWA is that web app you built, only arranged so a phone can install it. A user opens your site on their phone and adds it to the home screen from the browser menu.

Once it is installed it behaves like any app:

• Its own icon and its own name.
• It opens full screen when tapped.
• No browser address bar across the top.

Hold two things apart and the rest becomes easy:

• The web app is the work: the calculations, forms, lists and search, whatever the site does. That is the real thing.
• The PWA is the wrapper: the same site now sitting on the phone's home screen, with the step of opening a browser removed.

A PWA is not a separate app and there is nothing new to build. The site you already made is the thing that installs. Build the app well first; installing is the last step.

A real Android app from your live site (.apk and .aab)

With a PWA, each person adds it to their home screen themselves. Some people want a real app file, one that can be sent on WhatsApp or listed on the Play Store. That works now too: from any live site, BanglaCodes builds a real, signed Android app, in two files.

• .apk: the file that installs straight onto a phone. Send it on WhatsApp as a "Document" (not as a photo or video), or as a file on Messenger, and whoever gets it taps the file and the app installs.
• .aab: the file Google Play Console asks for. It is what you need to put the app on the Play Store.

It works on the free address (apnar-site.banglacodes.app) and on a verified domain of your own. The account has to be verified.

The cost: your first app is free. Each build after it, a new app or a new version of the same one, takes 10,000 Premium Token; the free daily AI Token does not cover it. The Token comes back by itself if the build does not finish. If your first app's build does not finish, the next try is still free. Updating the site needs no new build, and after you verify a domain of your own, the new version for that address is free too.

1. Put the site live. The app opens your live site, so it has to be published first.
2. In the builder, press the "Android app" button in the tools row. If the site is not live yet it goes live first, then the "Android app" card opens. The same card is in the sheet behind the "Live" button at the top, and on the Manage site page; there, press "Make the app".
3. Check the name and the icon. The name is filled in from the site name; change it if you like. The icon offers the site's own logo first; you can pick a letter icon made from the name instead, or any picture you made or uploaded. The letter icon and the app's top bar take your site's own colour (the one set in "Colours and fonts", if you changed it there).
4. Press "Start making the app". It usually takes 5 to 12 minutes. You can close the page and it keeps going; the files wait on the same card, and an email tells you when it is done.
5. Download the files. Take the .apk to install on your own phone or to send to someone; send it to customers on WhatsApp as a "Document". If the phone asks whether to allow installs from this source, press "Allow".
6. To put it on the Play Store, upload the .aab to Play Console from your own Google Play developer account. Google charges a one-time registration fee to open that account and reviews the app before releasing it; a new personal account is often asked to run a short closed test with a few testers first. The upload happens from your account: BanglaCodes does not do it for you.
7. When you change the site later, just Publish again. The app opens your live site full screen (this is called a Trusted Web Activity), so there is no new build and no Play Store review. You only build again to change the app's name or icon: press "Make a new version" then. A new version is a build too, so it takes 10,000 Premium Token.

We keep the app's signing key (keystore). So every later version installs as an update of the same app, and nobody has to delete the old one and install it afresh.

One person can build up to 2 apps a day. To start an app with the phone in mind from the very beginning, press the "Android app" button in the chat: the builder starts an app laid out for phones. Put it live, then follow the steps above.

There is no app file for iPhone. On an iPhone, open the site in Safari and use Add to Home Screen, as in the PWA steps below. On Android the PWA still works as before too; the Android app is the extra step for people who want a real app file or the Play Store.

Why a web app comes first for a Bangladeshi business

For most small businesses, building a separate Play Store app as the first move is the wrong way round. Web app first, then the Android app made from that same site: go in that order and you get both. The reasons are simple, and they sit side by side in the table.

There is one more practical reason:

• In Bangladesh a business starts on a Facebook page.
• A link under a post means an interested person is looking at it immediately.
• Send them to the Play Store and a download step stands in the middle, and that is exactly where most people are lost.

How to make yours installable

1. Say so while you build. Whether it is a fresh app or one you already have, a single line does it.

Make the app installable on a phone (PWA), with its own icon and name, and make it open even when there is no internet.

1. Press Publish. Installing does not work in the preview, which is run apart for safety, so do not spend time trying to test it there.
2. Add your own domain if you want one; if not, skip this step. Installing and offline work on the free address itself (apnar-site.banglacodes.app). A domain is only for an address in your own name, and running the site on your own domain takes the one-time lifetime hosting, ৳6,999, by bKash, Nagad or card.
3. Install it on your own phone once. See whether the icon looks right, whether the name is cut short, and how long it takes to open.
4. For a real app file or the Play Store, follow the steps in the "A real Android app from your live site" part above.

Installing it on a phone, Android and iPhone

You will have to tell users these steps, because many of them do not know a website can be put on a phone at all.

On Android:

1. Open your address in Chrome.
2. Look for Install app or Add to Home screen at the bottom or in the menu.
3. Tap it and the icon appears.

On iPhone:

1. Open it in Safari. Chrome will not do, and that is Apple's rule.
2. Tap the Share button at the bottom (the arrow).
3. Pick Add to Home Screen from the list.

• Write these steps somewhere on the site itself, in small text, or show them with a picture.
• Having it on the page beats explaining it to a customer over the phone.
• On an Android phone, sending someone the .apk skips these steps as well: tapping the file installs the app.

What works offline and what does not

Once it has been opened online, the app keeps its own files on the phone. So it opens the next time even with no connection.

• Works: opening pages, reading text and looking at pictures, calculations, calculators, filling a form, browsing a list and printing.
• Does not work: sending a form. With no connection the submission cannot reach our servers, so it has to be sent again once the connection is back.
• Does not work: pulling in anything new. Without a connection the app shows the last version it stored.
• Remember: what the app remembers stays on that one phone, and clearing the browser's data clears it too. For a ledger or a stock list, the Business plan's cloud data keeps the records on the server and the same on every phone.

When you still need a developer

You no longer need a developer to be on the Play Store: the .aab from the steps above is the file Play Console takes. A developer is needed when one of the following is the core of your business. Our app opens your site, and a site cannot do these.

• Sending regular notifications in the background even while the app is closed, the way a ride sharing or delivery app does.
• Reaching deep into the phone: reading SMS, the call list, bluetooth devices, location running in the background.
• Taking money inside the Play Store itself, such as In-App Purchase.

For those, talk to an Android developer. Such an app is built separately, and that cannot happen inside a browser.

For a shop catalogue, bookings, an accounts book, a routine, a notice board, a quiz or a game, a PWA and our Android app are plenty. The PWA is free, and so is your first Android app.

Beginner questions

So is my site a real app?

• To the user, yes: there is an icon on the home screen, it opens full screen when tapped, and if it was built for offline use it opens without a connection.
• If you want it on the Play Store, that works too: make the Android app from your live site and upload the .aab from your own Google Play developer account.

If I change the site after people install it, do they get the new one?

• They do. The next time they open the app the new version arrives on its own.
• Nobody has to install anything again.
• The same goes for the Android app: it opens your live site, so publishing again is enough, with no new build and no Play Store review.

The new change is not showing, what do I do?

1. Close the app completely and open it again. That fixes it most of the time.
2. If not, tell the builder to raise the version of the files stored for offline use, and the new one will come down on everybody's phone.

Read next

• Getting Orders and Applications From Your Site's Forms
• Sharing and Publish
• Which Hosting You Need: Basic, Business or Commerce