With the launch of Ionic React, the author shares his experience transitioning from Angular to React by rebuilding a personal demo app, Star Track, as a Progressive Web App (PWA). He highlights the ease of adding an App Manifest using Create React App (CRA), which provides out-of-the-box features like a manifest and placeholder icons, compared to Angular's approach. The text delves into the importance of Service Workers for offline functionality and explains how CRA uses the Workbox library to automate caching strategies. Despite CRA's default setting to disable Service Workers, the author appreciates the ability to opt-in by modifying the registration process, allowing developers to handle updates effectively. The author expresses enthusiasm for further exploring PWAs with React, aiming to deliver fast and feature-rich apps with the Ionic team.