Trusted Web Activity + Android App Bundle

Kimura, L. 木村 — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 00:22:10 +0000

Golden tip when publishing your TWA at PlayStore.

If you didn't see the previous article, about TWA take a look here.

Today I'm going to talk about a problem that some of you may encounter when publishing an App to the store using the Android App Bundle format.

For those who do not know, this is the new official model of publishing an application on the Play Store. Through this new format, Google promises better efficiency in builds and releases, as well as increasing compression and reducing the size of your application.

If you want to know more, I will leave the link below:
https://developer.android.com/guide/app-bundle/

That said, where do I want to go?

Well, with this new way of publishing, we have a very interesting option to select your app signing through the Google store itself. And if you did, you need to replace your key generated via Android Studio with the key that was generated on the Play Store, otherwise authentication between your app and your site will fail, and the URL bar will be appearing in your app, similar to the one in the image below:

To prevent this from happening, and your TWA looks like a native App, just enter your app's settings on the PlayStore, and in the left side menu look for the Release Management option and select the App Signing option.

On the right side, you should open a screen like the one below, informing you which is the SHA-256 Certified Fingerprint, which you should replace in your assetlinks.json file.

That done, just upload your json file to your website, and your TWA will be working properly!

Well, today was just a quick tip that can help anyone who is experiencing this little problem!

If you have some question you can find me on twitter @kimuradev.

See u guys!

Trusted Web Activities

Kimura, L. 木村 — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 23:56:39 +0000

A new way to integrate your web app with your Android!

Hey guys, today I'll tell you a little bit more about TWA.

But after all, what is a TWA, why and when to use?

What is there today?

Well, first of all, it's worth remembering that even before TWA, there are two other ways to integrate our web content into an Android app:

WebViews:

WebView is the most used component, mainly because there are some successful frameworks in the market, such as Ionic, that work in this format. With it you have full-screen support of your application, working with cookies, and linking Javascript code to Android code. The downside is that its performance is compromised and varies with each operating system.

Chrome Custom Tabs:

Chrome Custom Tabs, or CCT, in turn was introduced to Chrome in version 45. And unlike WebView, instead of looking like a full-screen application, the user will see it as an Activity with a custom toolbar. However this customization is limited and the user will always see the content URL. And finally, your app will have no access to web state, such as cookie, storage, etc…

Cool, so what changes with TWA?

Well, first of all, your TWA will run Chrome in full screen. And what does that mean? It means that for the user it is transparent. It will feel like a native application is actually running. And this is because of the ability to verify that your site and application are digitally certified through Digital Link Assets (which we talk about in the PWA article), and therefore are reliable.

TWA also has access to all Chrome features and can perform certain features not possible in WebViews. Some of these features are, for example, push notifications, autofill forms in Chrome, background synchronization, among others.

And just like CCT, a TWA can share data stored in Chrome, including cookies, as well as share session states, etc.

Okay, but when and why use it?

Well, there are several situations, where not necessarily an application is the main product of disclosure of your company. A classic example is shopping sites, or market places. The checkout system is often somewhat complex, and is often worth keeping in web format. That's where the versatility that TWA brings.

You can work on your native application until you checkout. From there you call your site through Trusted Web Activities, perform every checkout operation that already works today, and if you want, go back to the native app to complete the user purchase.

Well, the idea was to really explain a little bit more about what TWA really is, and what its advantages are.

Questions, doubts or suggestions are welcome! Just ping me on Twitter for @kimuradev