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As others have said, Apple was strongly opposed to introducing support for native third party apps on the iPhone not long before this essay was written. Apple'

As others have said, Apple was strongly opposed to introducing support for native third party apps on the iPhone not long before this essay was written. Apple's preferred approach was web apps that you could "install" to the home screen on the device. While that functionality is still available, Apple has left that web app approach stagnant - not adding features that other platforms/browsers have, and reducing performance compared to running the same web page in Safari.

tobr 5y ago
First, it’s not fair to say they “strongly opposed” native apps “not long before” the essay. Every iPhone model has supported native apps through the App Store. Yes, web apps was their original plan, but they announced their intention to launch a native SDK just three months after the original iPhone release. It took another thirty months before this essay was published, so in relative terms, at that time that original plan was nothing but a historical parenthetical. Second, this is completely irrelevant to claiming that the essay in question suggests developing mobile apps with HTML5. That’s just flat-out incorrect.
- ksec 5y ago
  >but they announced their intention to launch a native SDK just three months after the original iPhone release. All thanks to Scott Forstall, he was the only one doing heated debate with Steve Jobs. And his word "HTML5 will never be as good as native apps" is still true today, whether it is on iOS or not. I really do miss Scott Forstall.