[hellotoby]

I feel this way too just not about Apple products, but about HTML.

These surely are great days to be a web developer. HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript coupled with great browser support. It feels like there is so much that can be achieved!

[robmcm]

Browser support is still a huge issue that people tend to gloss over. It's a problem any standards based environment will face. Native will always develope faster and be more consistent.

[bgarbiak]

Well, one coud argue that developing one web app for a selected browsers is faster than developing a few native apps, each for different OS. Especially when you consider the fact that on mobile devices Webkit is a de facto standard and that issues like Android fragmentation doesn't make developing native apps any easier.

In my opinion, the real issues about web apps are: performance, lack of the Device API and a lack of matured tools. Solving first two is, luckily, a question of "when", not "if". The latest phones are already fast enough to handle even the heaviest jQuery monsters; LTE and 4G are getting traction and Device API is a work in progress (eventually, there's a PhoneGap). Lack of tools is harder to solve though. JavaScript grew big lately, yet in this field it's still very far from being mature. If you are doing anything non-standard in JS (like Backbone.js classes) the best you can get from IDEs, etc. is syntax highlighting. Hopefully, with more and more big players (like Adobe) hopping onto HTML5 bandwagon things in this matter will soon improve too.

[billybob]

If you're shooting for the mobile market, writing a web app that works in the 5 most popular mobile browsers is a lot easier than rewriting your native app for each platform you want to target.

[robmcm]

Isn't there huge fragmentation in Android webkit? Plus focusing on iOS and Android covers most 'mobile' cases. Other platforms hold a harder justification.

Perhaps the route forward is a simple web app to cover everyone, then focus on the top platforms for native.