Capacitor creator here: agreed that Capacitor absolutely could be used by the PWA Builder team to power this and still keep their goals/values in mind (we also have a connection through Justin at PWA Builder who was an old Ionic team member!)
I am going to chat w/ Judah about this, already have a convo on github
It has been really cool to watch the evolution from Apache PhoneGap -> Cordova -> Ionic -> Capacitor (where now Ionic is the UI component library)
I had strong negative experiences/opinions, all the way up until Capacitor. It's good tech and an undervalued option when compared to React Native.
Source: Have built mobile apps with PhoneGap, React Native, NativeScript, and Android.
I'm not a fan of React Native -- though my last experiences with it were many years ago so I'm sure much has changed.
Also I don't think most "native apps" need to be native apps. They want a place on the homescreen usually, not use of underlying hardware API's like accelerometers.
Most "native apps" should really be installable PWA's or using something like Capacitor IMO.
Appreciate the kind words! Capacitor is younger than anything on that list so it still has a ways to go in terms of market awareness, but the general reaction we see when devs try it out is very positive. When we explain to people that you can build a native iOS/Android/Web/Desktop app with your favorite web stack and existing web code in many cases, that's turning out to be pretty compelling. And, for people that tried Cordova in the past, Capacitor's DX is pretty dramatically different and improved.
I did just that when using capacitor (pointed it to my dist folder, good to go). What other steps do you think capacitor requires that PWA builder doesn't?
