[dcurtis]

"jQTouch and Sencha Touch are doing mobile web development a great disservice by only supporting the latest-and-greatest WebKit platforms."

How is focusing on the future doing a disservice to anyone? We're at the very beginning of the mobile-optimized web, and the future is still unclear. There's still room to define it. Supporting the equivalent of IE6 on mobile devices seems like a waste of time to me, especially after we've just spent a decade watching the evolution of the desktop web be stunted by obsessive focus on backwards/cross compatibility.

Also, nearly all major device manufacturers have committed to using WebKit. In five years, how many mobile devices will not run WebKit? If Windows Phone 7 isn't dead by then, it might be the only one.

[mrkurt]

I don't really relish a future where one browser engine dominates the way IE has in the past. I fully expect and hope for more viable mobile engines.

Even still, jQtouch (at least, I haven't messed with the Sencha thing) is very iDevice slanted. There's "webkit" and then there's "webkit on iOS", and most tools are targeted specifically at "webkit on iOS".

[dcurtis]

The thing the differentiates WebKit from IE in a good way is that it's completely open source and it's used and built by several competing companies working together toward a common goal.

[mrkurt]

It's also behind both IE and Firefox in various ways. You're right that it would be a better dominant engine than IE was, but it's still not as good as having a nice three way competition for browser share.

[paulirish]

How is focusing on the future doing a disservice to anyone?

Well, you're clearly not serving the present.

[_neil]

Competition is a good thing. Choice is cool.