[hn-miw-i]

I find the default iOS popup advertising an app the worst part, by large the app offers extra functionality over the web. the popup disrupts the experience and I also have the same feelings of rage on random site for some random stupid bullshit app.

The compass in the iPhone for example, does device allow a web server query the phones heading through browser? Offline modes and caching are features not really possible with the browser.

As for the giving something up, open public web access to proprietary apps, this is very true. I don't see big content moving away from the web though, the app ecosystem seems to compliment it.

[fpgeek]

Yes, compass heading can be queried through the browser: http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/device/orientation/

As of April 2011, the article claims various degrees of support from mobile Chrome, Safari, Opera and Firefox.

There's also plenty of work on application caching and offline support (though, to be fair, that's a very hard problem): http://www.html5rocks.com/en/features/offline