Wow. All I can say now is wow. I just took advantage of a new solution that Google has made available, tested and launched now for iOS 14+ and iPadOS 14+ that allows Full Stage on iPhone and iPad and are absolutely shocked at how well it works. I played a few minutes of watch dogs on my iPad Mini with my Stadia controller connected wirelessly via Wi-Fi and not only was everything completely replayed: it was a wonderful experience!
We’re already planning a quick video with details on how to set things up, but it’s as simple as it is fast. As long as you have an iPhone or iPad on iOS / iPadOS 14+, you’re good to go. Open Safari (yes, Safari and not Chrome), navigate to stadia.google.com, sign in, and you’re almost ready to run. You can play right here or tap the share icon at the top next to the URL bar and add Stage to the home screen (essentially Staging PWA an app-like shortcut) and when you click that icon, the whole stadium experience is at hand.
The only thing missing here is the ability to configure your controller and connect it to your local Wi-Fi, but which can be managed with the Stadia app in the App Store. In fact, you pair the controller to your gaming session, and pretty much anything else is possible in PWA, and again, it’s amazing. It only took me a few minutes to install the controller and get into a quick game and, as I did, I couldn’t believe how smooth and delayed the whole experience was.
PWA power
You have to remember, In essence, they all run on a Safari tab. Progressive web applications simply have the best web technologies available and wrap them in a bow to look good. For example, opening stadia.google.com in the Safari browser on my iPad gave me no functional difference in the game except for the app launched via the shortcut on the home screen. Everything is just for the look, but it is a very convincing show. Once you’ve added the shortcut to the home screen and launched a game in Stage, it’s hard to know that you’re not actually running a native app installed through the App Store.
So why did Google have to do this? Why not just launch an iPhone / iPad app? Well, it mostly revolves around services like Stage and GeForce NOW offering services in their apps that violate Apple’s terms of service in the App Store. While the whole debate is murky and confusing, it looks like Apple is trying to find a way to allow these types of apps in the App Store, but the offer doesn’t look great for Google, Microsoft, NVidia or Amazon at the moment.
In the most Google way possible, thought, the Stage has just passed around these limitations and has become completely playable on the mobile web and that’s why I think PWAs will eventually change the whole game. App stores from companies like Google and Apple can honestly exercise too much control over what’s available and what’s not, stifling innovation in an attempt to make more money out of the business model.
PWAs based on open web standards do not have to follow these arbitrary rules. They can enjoy the same, either in a browser tab at a specific URL or in a separate window as an “installed” application. Either way, the technology is available to the user without having to go through a store to get it. Although this presents problems for the end user to discover, there are also growing ways. The Google Play Store is slowly but surely offering PWAs instead of native apps for Chromebook users, and this trend is clearly set to expand.
In addition, app developers who build powerful web experiences are getting better at getting users to adopt PWA than hunting down a native app for things like Twitter and YouTube TV, and 2021 will probably see even more of that. . The adoption of the PWA is long, until 2020 and there is no reason to believe that it will not continue until 2021 and beyond.
The stage on iOS / iPadOS is the once humble web application that leans a little on us. It offers the native application experience, while proving how valuable it is to be able to deliver this type of mobile computing experience without the need for a regular app store of any kind. All you need is a URL, and the app is waiting for you, ready to do what is necessary and powerful enough to make you not even care that it’s not a native app. The stage shows what is possible with this type of software and, as a big fan of the open web and PWAs, I can not be more pleased with the direction in which all this is heading.
