Introduction

Until today it's impossible to get PWA features such as web Push Notifications working on iOS. But that did not discourage us. After all, we’re used to being first-in-our field trailblazers when it comes to headless, PWA, and Composable Commerce. And our newest innovation marks a huge step forward in our work to make PWA part of the iOS world (and vice versa).

Deity is THE first to offer merchants and webshops a PWA which is also downloadable in the App Store and provides native-app capabilities. Now, thanks to our newest update, this includes native Push Notification functionality. Push Notifications massively improve user experience and the overall effectiveness of applications. So if you’re in ecommerce and don’t have or can’t afford a native app, you no longer have to miss out on the part of your customer base using iOS.

Deity’s acronym-busting guide to our latest breakthrough

A Progressive Web App (PWA) is a web application that uses the latest web capabilities to deliver users a native app-like experience. PWA’s are reliable, incredibly fast, and highly engaging without the cost of additional customized coding. And at Deity, we’ve been building and launching them on live stores even before the term gained popularity.
We can get caught up in the jargon or we can cut to the chase: Your customers want to find you not just on the web but increasingly expect to interact and shop through apps, no matter what kind of phone they use. As merchants, you need to decide how to invest in, develop, and build this functionality (PWA or native app).

Each option has its advantages and disadvantages, depending on budget and other factors, but one drawback to PWAs is that some crucial functionality (like web push notifications) is not yet available on Apple devices (iOS), Then we stepped in.

While it’s still impossible to use (PWA) web push notifications on iOS directly – only Apple can change that – our solution closes the gap between PWA and native apps by publishing the PWA directly into the App Store as a native app.

Our solution weds the benefits of a PWA with the mobile-first native-like experiences and tons of dynamic flexibility AND is downloadable from the App Store. This means your customer reach goes way beyond the standard web, being available not only on Android, but also iOS. And once your app is downloaded, you can directly communicate with your clients through timely, cost-effective Push Notifications.

Benefits of Deity’s Native PWA for iOS

Your customers can now also find you through the App Store and reach your business through their preferred ways.

NEW: Send Push Notification to users on iOS (instead of or in addition to newsletters, coupons, etc.). Carry out mass marketing and convert sales easily and cost-effectively with our near-native PWA and Push Notifications on any device.

Add value by cutting duplicate development and maintenance costs: One code-base, one application, and one maintenance point for the web, Google Play, and even the App Store.

We’re always here to lend a hand with tech support and business advice.

Ready for some more good news?

Along with our PWA solutions, we are pleased to report there are early indications that larger changes may be afoot. While Apple has made no official announcement, early investigations into the 15.4 iOS beta release indicate they have built the groundwork for additional functionalities like Push Notifications. For the tech-heads out there, it appears Apple has added a "Push API" toggle in the Experimental settings page for Safari. 

This has set the tech world abuzz guessing whether Apple will implement this or not. If they choose to take this live, then it would be a huge step forward. They would join the likes of Google which implemented this over five years ago, by bringing web-based notifications to its mobile devices. It would finally allow for an ecosystem where most features of PWAs are available on all devices. 

In the meantime, while Apple decides which way to go, we’re here to help you bridge the gap. Ready to implement our PWA solution with Push Notifications for iOS? Have questions? Don’t hesitate to contact us, we’re ready to work our magic.