Native v. Web

Six Colors: “Most apps are just thin layers on top of modern Web standards with the added benefit of a potentially superior user-interface experience, because the operating system takes care of more details with greater consistency, and allows a complicated but more reliable adaptation to multiple sizes of devices, whether itâ€ s iOS, Windows Phone, or Android.”

Yes, folks are still talking about native vs. web. Without the web most modern day apps would be less useful and in many cases useless. Social apps only work with a connection to services running on the web. We still need sites to provide access to the masses, a way to get data on any device.

There will probably come a day when the browser can outright replace native apps, but it’s not here yet. Web technologies are still very young and ever evolving. Heck, you can only use one language in the browser, that’s way too limiting. When the browser matures to the point it allows developers to control the entire experience and is open to the language of the developers choosing, I think we’ll see some remarkable apps. Until then we still need the native experience.