The simple answer is there's currently no way to directly add your PWA to the Google Play Store, Apple's iTunes or Microsoft's App Store. You can, however add your PWA directly to Amazon's App Store. For the rest of them, you have to first create a wrapper for it, then deploy the wrapper package to the store. Since you specifically asked about Google Play Store, you basically need two files (see below), plus a few supporting files, which will be automatically created for you when you create a new Android project in Android Studio (or similar environment). You need a main activity that launches your PWA starting URL, something like:
public class MainActivity extends Activity {
@Override
protected void onCreate(Bundle savedInstanceState) {
super.onCreate(savedInstanceState);
setContentView(R.layout.activity_main);
WebView webView = (WebView) findViewById(R.id.webview);
WebSettings webSettings = webView.getSettings();
webSettings.setJavaScriptEnabled(true);
webSettings.setDomStorageEnabled(true);
webSettings.setDatabaseEnabled(true);
webView.setWebViewClient(new WebViewClient() {
@Override
public void onReceivedError(WebView view, WebResourceRequest request, WebResourceError error) {
view.loadUrl("about:blank");
Toast.makeText(MainActivity.this,
"Failed loading initial resources. Online access is needed when starting the app up for the first time. Close and try again with network connectivity", Toast.LENGTH_LONG).show();
super.onReceivedError(view, request, error);
}
});
webView.loadUrl(APPLICATION_URL);
}
}
You don't need a XML layout file (you could just create the WebView in code) but in case you prefer configuring options in xml, it'd be something like this:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<WebView xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
xmlns:tools="http://schemas.android.com/tools"
xmlns:app="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res-auto"
android:id="@+id/webview"
android:layout_width="match_parent"
android:layout_height="match_parent"
tools:context="com.mypackage.myapp.MainActivity"/>
Finally, you need the AndroidManifest.xml:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<manifest xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
package="com.mypackage.myapp">
<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>
<application
android:allowBackup="true"
android:icon="@mipmap/my_logo"
android:label="@string/app_name"
android:roundIcon="@mipmap/my_logo"
android:supportsRtl="true"
android:theme="@style/AppTheme">
<activity android:name=".MainActivity"
android:configChanges="keyboardHidden|orientation|screenSize">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.MAIN"/>
<category android:name="android.intent.category.LAUNCHER"/>
</intent-filter>
</activity>
</application>
</manifest>
Then, you need Android build tools to create your package. If you've downloaded Android Studio, you are all set. The good thing is that, once you've published your wrapper app, you don't need to change it much but can focus on updating just your PWA.
For Microsoft App Store, the process is similar. You don't necessarily need Visual Studio. You can just use PWABuilder's package as a base, remove whatever you don't need and create an "app package upload file" with (Windows) command-line tools.
For iTunes, you need another wrapper and AFAIK, the only way to create one is with (Apple's) Xcode IDE.
