This article lacks anything serious to consider, and strikes me as far too close to being link-bait. Judging by the contents, its title is, at best, an ignoratio elenchi. It should have been entitled, "Mobile Web Apps Will Save Developers Time Compared to Native Apps".

The article espouses little more beyond the offerings and appeals of companies making yet-to-be-proven predictions about what the future of mobile apps will be, in an effort to secure and advance their business's goals and existence. These goals are not the goals of the users, who will ultimately decide what the best platform for mobile apps is--not on its technical merits, but on its ease of giving them the shortest and most pain-free path from want/need to procurement. The only mention of the users is in saying they can hardly tell the difference between a native or web app--and that completely depends on what type of app they are comparing.

Smartphone popularity among the general public skyrocketed as a result of the App Store. The mobile app didn't rise to such sexy heights because we developers were out there salivating over creating HTML apps for smartphones. It rose because consumers finally had a good way to find a fun or useful app with a simple search of a (usually) simple app name. No more remembering URLs. No more bookmarks. No more, "Was it .com or .net?" Just a simple tap-to-install process resulting in a recognizable icon they could flick to and launch with their thumb. The App Store and the mobile app model gave consumers a very easy to understand and re-use paradigm for finding and using apps.

I've enjoyed the development and rise of the web since I was a kid. I've been excited by web application development, watching web apps get ever closer to offering what can be done in a native desktop application in both features and usability. Plenty of web apps are better than their desktop alternatives (or don't have any).

However, the web still has not solved the biggest problems the App Store model solved for both developers and users--and users are what matters when it comes to keeping developers building and making money.

I doubt I'm the only user who frequently forgets the URL of a site, product, web app, or what-have-you that I want to find/use when I want to find/use it, and I've got a pretty good memory (though I suppose I'm not entirely objective). Users don't have to worry about that on their phones--where they more-often-than-not remember an app by not just its name, but its name in association with its icon. Problem solved.

Moreover, and more importantly, the web (in its desktop-based incarnation) has struggled in so many visible, obvious, and personal ways (for devs/companies) when it comes to the one thing that matters most--getting users to pay to use your shit. Users on the web have an implicit expectation that websites are free (hello newspapers?). And I think that's what made the web what it is today. With mobile apps, there is, imho, a much lower implicit barrier to payment than the web has ever been able to obtain for itself. Problem solved.

What's the web platform for making money? Oh, right ... we already know ... advertising. Everywhere. Yuck.