The web wasn’t ready, but native was arguably even less ready due to lack of sandboxing. High fidelity would have been possible with a web based SDK. But that w

The web wasn’t ready, but native was arguably even less ready due to lack of sandboxing. High fidelity would have been possible with a web based SDK. But that would have invited plebs to convert existing shitty pages to be “apps”, and in those days iOS apps was a noise-free exclusive experience. Web or not, gatekeeping software distribution was and remains a power grab, unrelated to security. It’s even less of an issue on mobile which has proper sandboxing anyway.