No, the browser is definitely not just an application in Android. It is WebKit, which is in the framework layer. Android can run any language that can compile

No, the browser is definitely not just an application in Android. It is WebKit, which is in the framework layer. Android can run any language that can compile to the JVM. On the other hand, compiling to Java bytecode really isn't much different from a source-to-source translation to Java text - at least not from the programmer's point of view. And have you ever programmed in an S2S environment? Sucko. As for (2), you are absolutely right. The basic problem is that if the Web had been designed as an application platform from the start, the installable application would be dead. But is the way to fix this to build a new installable application environment? Or a new network application environment?