[wavephorm]

I think he is underestimating the quantum leap that web technologies have made in the past 2 years.

Between canvas, audio & audio data, video tag, css3, websockets, webworkers, webgl, touchscreen events, and new server tech like nodejs... there are now so many new API's to learn and work with that most web developers haven't even started to catch up yet. There's a lot of room here, the capabilities of the permutations of these technologies together will take years to fully realize. It will take years to write libraries to build the power-features necessary to really take this stuff to the next level.

The power to build a amazing new apps is now here. It took 10 years for this leap to happen. Just give it some time for web developers to catch up.

[Me1000]

Compare that to the progress of native development. Apple comes out with new cool things on iOS every year, whereas on the web it takes 5 years to get something new that is 10 years behind the native counterparts.

[drgath]

The difference is that the iOS stuff only runs on $500 devices. The web stuff runs on just about everything. No one ever said standards were easy.

[Me1000]

Everything the web runs on now is much more advanced than the computers of 10 years ago.

Joe's point he made a year ago is still true today, but it hasn't happened. "Browser makers need to go nuts with non-standard APIs and let the W3C standardize later"

[ceejayoz]

Interesting point. XMLHTTPRequest was out in 1999, but it took until 2005 for it to really catch on with Google Maps etc. coming out.

[nikcub]

the problem is that most of the new features are just 'catching up' with what native apps and flash have been able to do for years now.

and we are still a long way from having all those API's (most of which flash and desktop did 10 years ago) available on most web browser installs