[tomkr]

I guess the absence of the APIs can't really be both baffling and not surprising, but I agree with your point. Especially Apple will be sad to see it's 30% go, but it has to realize that the app store will still have its place, if only for the discoverability. Web app builders on the other hand can do so much more with these APIs, while circumventing app store rules and pushing updates whenever they want. Perhaps this could be the rise of alternative app stores on the iOS platform as well, that would be awesome. Fingers crossed for Apple implementing this.