Your assessment seems to suggest this is a perception issue. But even the best mobile websites really are second-tier to solid (not even top tier) native apps. And as smartphones become more and more sophisticated sensor platforms, this will become even more problematic.
And as smartphones become more and more sophisticated sensor platforms, this will become even more problematic.
Not if mobile browsers keep up with these more sophisticated platforms. The problem (as the OP outlined) is that there are decreasing incentives people like Apple to keep improving their mobile browser. They hold the keys, and they want apps.
I agree that this is a significant factor in the problem, but it is far from the only one.
The problems with the mobile web are far broader than that. Being tied to JavaScript (a language whose semantics remove significant optimisation opportunities, unless you write in something else and target via asm.js), a UI layer that doesn't cleanly map to being hardware accelerated, and missing or incomplete APIs for everything from Bluetooth to push messaging.
If you look at the Chrome APIs (that is the stuff Chrome apps get access to) there is neat stuff, and they are attacking it slowly enough that what APIs they produce are sane, and this is clearly what they see as the future. The problem is the world moves faster than that, and just as the web people are beginning to even grok mobile they're going to be smacked around the head by an absolute explosion of tiny devices.
Being tied to JavaScript (a language whose semantics remove significant optimisation opportunities, unless you write in something else and target via asm.js)
In a world where V8 exists, I'm not so sure. JS running on the main thread absolutely is a problem, and Web Workers are a clunky solution.
a UI layer that doesn't cleanly map to being hardware accelerated
Agreed this part is tricky. But existing hardware acceleration on mobile web isn't that bad.
missing or incomplete APIs for everything from Bluetooth to push messaging.
Mozilla is working on all this for Firefox OS, but of course no-one has incentive to agree with them.
> JS running on the main thread absolutely is a problem, and Web Workers are a clunky solution.
Chrome is moving towards out-of-process iframes, which should help alleviate many performance issues (ads janking your page) and give you new capability (basically web workers with a full DOM).
http://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/oop-ifra...
"But existing hardware acceleration on mobile web isn't that bad."
Mobile users are extremely demanding, in my experience. They DEFINITELY notice the difference between web & native interfaces. When mobile is accounting for huge %s of traffic and revenue, its a hard sell to settle for good-enough for philosophical issues. Particularly when the competition isn't.
>But even the best mobile websites really are second-tier to solid (not even top tier) native apps.
This goes back to his original point , no one really has strong incentive to make mobile web performance better. The two primary gatekeepers (apple, google) are benefiting hugely from their app stores in terms of profit and pushing their agenda.
