The steady march of Progressive Web Apps (PWA) hitting the Microsoft Store continues, this time with an official release from Trivago. A listing for the hotel comparison app originally popped up in the Store last week but it wasn't working at the time. However, the kinks appear to have been worked out, and the app is now available and fully functional.
Unlike the previous waves of PWAs, which were published by Microsoft, Trivago is published by the company itself. And as with other PWAs, you can do everything with the app that you'd expect to be able to do by perusing the Trivago website in your browser.
You can easily and quickly search for hotels nearby specific locations, find deals, and book a room. There are also plenty of filtering options for things like price, hotel class, guest rating, and distance from significant landmarks. Reviews, photos, and information for each hotel are all easily accessible as well. Overall, the app feels pretty snappy and not all that different from using a native Universal Windows Platform (UWP) app.
PWAs are part of a push by Microsoft to get more apps on the Microsoft Store. Microsoft is relying on two ways to do this: developers can submit PWAs themselves, or the Microsoft Store will automatically index quality PWAs with the Bing web crawler and publish them itself. The ultimate goal is to provide native app-like experiences without requiring as much work from developers.
Progressive Web Apps (PWA): What they are, and what they mean for Microsoft
With the Windows 10 April 2018 Update set to arrive on April 30, it's likely we'll see more and more PWAs hit the Microsoft Store in the coming weeks and months. Expect to hear more about PWAs at Microsoft's Build 2018 conference in May as well.
