Lets get this straight, the limitations in performance on Mobile Safari are very much deliberate limitations. Do you seriously think a company like Apple who gets a pretty large chunk of app store sales is going to let something like HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript steal it's profits away? Fat chance.
Although it even rings true for desktop browsers not being able to perform as optimally in regards to some HTML5 features work, Apple can and could do more to improve HTML5 support but won't for the foreseeable future until it works out how it can control and monetise HTML5 (which it can't and never will).
People are quick to point out Facebook ditched web and went native because of HTML5 limitations which I believe is a lie. It's been rumoured that Facebook is going to be deeply embedded into iOS 6 like Twitter got in iOS 5 and one of the requirements would obviously be to have a native application.
The Facebook app I believe was slow because of one key issue: 37 requests, 491kb. That was the problem, of course that many requests and large size is going to be slow for users on congested 3G networks.
Case in point of just how well a web app can run is LinkedIn's iOS app. It works the same way as the Facebook app used too. It has a Node.JS backend and uses a web wrapper to load it in, they even wrote up a blog post about how they squeezed every ounce of performance out of the web UIView and I think it works well.
I'm not one to believe in conspiracy theories without solid facts, but in my opinion the move to native by Facebook was a strategic one on Apple's end. Apple knew Facebook were the poster-child for HTML5 web applications that could run without relying on the almighty iPhone operating system, so throw them an integration bone and ask them to go native in hopes that others do the same and ditch HTML5 as their first choice for an app and many people will follow.
Apple makes almost no money, in relative terms, from app store sales (about 1% in '10)[1].
The business of running the appstore is not the reason they will never fully support cross-platform mobile development.
The real reason is websites that run as apps break Apple’s strangle-hold on their walled garden. Apple's business model is to sell devices via a tightly controlled channel (read few middlemen) at a high-margin; getting paid up-front when the device is purchased. Those high-margins are partially possible because of the value ascribed by customers to the uniqueness of variety & volume in the appstore combined with it's friction-free nature.
WORA is a pipe-dream. Has always been. Always will be. Meanwhile developers continue to suffer because there are enough 'popular' platforms that they have no choice but to do cross-platform development.[2] Sadly, this is just reality; I do not believe there will ever be a silver bullet.
App Store profit for Apple is a rounding error on their balance sheet.
Selling phones (and tablets) that can do amazing and powerful tasks is what makes Apple money. That's why they have invested so much into creating the iOS SDK, to enable developers. It is a fantastic platform, elegant and powerful that leverages their hardware.
If Apple could have gotten that same quality of software with web apps, why wouldn't they have chosen that as the platform and immediately have had millions of web devs ready to build for their mobile OS?
What the HTML5 evangelists fail to admit, is that HTML5+JS+CSS is a damn mess. We've been hearing for 10+ years how web apps are the cross-platform silver bullet. It's not.
"It has a Node.JS backend and uses a web wrapper to load it in, they even wrote up a blog post about how they squeezed every ounce of performance out of the web UIView and I think it works well."
Can you give a link to that blog post? I took a quick look at LinkedIn's corporate and developer blogs but couldn't come across it.
The first link is the one I referenced in my comment RE: Node.JS and heavy HTML5 optimisation. Other people who haven't seen them might find them interesting as well.
Although it even rings true for desktop browsers not being able to perform as optimally in regards to some HTML5 features work, Apple can and could do more to improve HTML5 support but won't for the foreseeable future until it works out how it can control and monetise HTML5 (which it can't and never will).
People are quick to point out Facebook ditched web and went native because of HTML5 limitations which I believe is a lie. It's been rumoured that Facebook is going to be deeply embedded into iOS 6 like Twitter got in iOS 5 and one of the requirements would obviously be to have a native application.
The Facebook app I believe was slow because of one key issue: 37 requests, 491kb. That was the problem, of course that many requests and large size is going to be slow for users on congested 3G networks.
Case in point of just how well a web app can run is LinkedIn's iOS app. It works the same way as the Facebook app used too. It has a Node.JS backend and uses a web wrapper to load it in, they even wrote up a blog post about how they squeezed every ounce of performance out of the web UIView and I think it works well.
I'm not one to believe in conspiracy theories without solid facts, but in my opinion the move to native by Facebook was a strategic one on Apple's end. Apple knew Facebook were the poster-child for HTML5 web applications that could run without relying on the almighty iPhone operating system, so throw them an integration bone and ask them to go native in hopes that others do the same and ditch HTML5 as their first choice for an app and many people will follow.