History of Webapps by GPT-4:

“Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) have their origins in the early 2000s but were officially introduced by Google in 2015. Here's a brief history:

1. **2007-2009: Early Concepts**: In 2007, Steve Jobs proposed the idea of "Web 2.0" applications that look and behave exactly like native apps, based purely on HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Around the same time, web designer Jeremy Keith coined the term "Progressive Enhancement" to describe a strategy for web design that emphasizes core webpage content first, adding more complex layers only if the browser supports it.

2. **2010-2012: AppCache and Service Workers**: With the introduction of HTML5, the idea of offline web applications became possible with AppCache. But it had many limitations and was considered a "douchebag" by Jake Archibald from Google because of its confusing behavior. Then in 2010, Google started working on a more powerful API, the Service Workers, to solve these issues.

3. **2015: Introduction of PWAs**: In 2015, designer Frances Berriman and Google Chrome engineer Alex Russell coined the term "Progressive Web App" to describe apps taking advantage of new features supported by modern browsers, including Service Workers and Web App Manifests, that let users upgrade web apps to progressive web applications in their native operating system.

4. **2016-2018: Adoption by Big Tech**: Companies like Twitter, Alibaba, and others started to build and promote their PWAs. Twitter's PWA (Twitter Lite) became particularly influential, showing that PWAs could deliver user experiences comparable to native apps. Microsoft, Google, and Apple also made progress in supporting PWAs on their platforms.

5. **2019-present**: PWAs continue to grow in popularity, with increasing support and adoption from major tech companies, and they're being used in a variety of industries including ecommerce, social media, and more.“