Tech giant Microsoft has partnered with Google to assist web developers in getting their Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) into the Play Store. Thurrot reports that apps created using Microsoft’s PWABuilder tool will now utilize Google’s Bubblewrap utility and library to generate and sign Google Play Store packages from PWAs.
According to Judah Gabriel Himango from Microsoft, “We are pleased to announce a new collaboration between Microsoft and Google that benefits the web developer community. Microsoft’s PWABuilder and Google’s Bubblewrap are now working together to help developers publish PWAs in the Google Play Store.”
PWAs utilize emerging web browser APIs and features alongside traditional progressive enhancement strategies. PWABuilder.com is an open-source developer tool from Microsoft that assists in building high-quality PWAs and releasing them in app stores.
The report states that both companies have made significant progress in integrating the tools. Himango explains that PWABuilder utilizes Bubblewrap “under the hood,” allowing developers to package PWAs for the Play Store with PWABuilder, supporting the new web shortcuts standard.
The PWABuilder also offers support for a wide range of full trusted web activity options, enhancing the functionality of PWAs on Android. Developers can customize the appearance of the Android status bar and navigation bar in PWAs using the PWABuilder.
Himango concludes, “Google and Microsoft are collaborating to create a more capable app platform on the web. We are also working with Google on Project Fugu to develop new web platform features, with PWAs at the forefront, to standardize and benefit everyone.”
