I'm the developer of Routesy (routesy.com), a public transit app for SF Muni/BART/Caltrain/AC Transit. My app has been around since the first day of the app sto

I'm the developer of Routesy (routesy.com), a public transit app for SF Muni/BART/Caltrain/AC Transit. My app has been around since the first day of the app store, and I get asked this question all the time. The short answer is that Apple gives me two important things: 1. A decent development platform with UI controls that provide a good, familiar user experience 2. A marketplace that lets my app make money so I can afford to continue developing it I've done some offline app development using HTML5 as well, and these apps just don't "feel" the same. Had I taken the HTML5 route, it would have been far easier for me to port my app to Android (which I haven't done yet), but my experience has been (at least for productivity and utility apps) that the more native an application feels, the better it sells.