> More access to HW is the last thing I want from the web at this moment
This is a big deal, and an irreconcilable philosophical divide. On the one hand web apps need to be able to compete with mobile. They should have access to gyros and cameras and location and offline and push - everything. Mobile apps are modern day Flash and we should strive to be rid of them in favor of a non-proprietary shared platform.
On the other hand the majority of useful information in the world is in document format. We need some sort of non-print-focused (pdf) format that we can use to share documents. Delivering basic documents through what are basically user-land operating systems (browsers) is overkill in every sense of the word: performance, security, accessibility, efficiency, etc.
What to do? The web is already on its march towards being an app platform. The next steps will be tough since Apple and Google also own the much more valuable mobile app ecosystems, and will try to protect them - but it's too late for the web now, the march is on. I think eventually there may need to be some sort of fork of the web to better satisfy both needs.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. It's hard to take Google's push for these sorts of APIs as a push for a "democratic shared platform," let alone see how all this would harm Google in any way.
"Democratic" may not have been the best term to use (edited the original comment), even though, as far as platforms go, the web probably is one of the more democratic ones. I was more aiming for "non-proprietary", "cross-platform" and "shared". Mobile apps are closed ecosystems.
> how all this would harm Google in any way
Owning half the mobile app ecosystem is more valuable than sharing a web.
This is a big deal, and an irreconcilable philosophical divide. On the one hand web apps need to be able to compete with mobile. They should have access to gyros and cameras and location and offline and push - everything. Mobile apps are modern day Flash and we should strive to be rid of them in favor of a non-proprietary shared platform.
On the other hand the majority of useful information in the world is in document format. We need some sort of non-print-focused (pdf) format that we can use to share documents. Delivering basic documents through what are basically user-land operating systems (browsers) is overkill in every sense of the word: performance, security, accessibility, efficiency, etc.
What to do? The web is already on its march towards being an app platform. The next steps will be tough since Apple and Google also own the much more valuable mobile app ecosystems, and will try to protect them - but it's too late for the web now, the march is on. I think eventually there may need to be some sort of fork of the web to better satisfy both needs.