I'm well aware of what native SDKs offer. I don't know why you assumed I'm unfamiliar with native development.
As for the last statement, and much of the others, I'm not even sure what you're asking. If you want a nice syntax for it, then yeah, wait for the spec to be finished. Otherwise, you're probably implementing that logic yourself. The same as if you want a native app to pull in different assets (unless we're talking about UI assets and a sane OS, but still, it's not like that's a compelling lacking feature).
Look, I'd be happy to be wrong but there are half a dozen inaccuracies in this very article about what is possible with web technology and how browsers themselves work.
Am I suggesting Angry Birds in web tech (even though it's already been done): No. Am I suggesting that shit basic apps like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc make more sense as simple, functional, accessible webapps? Absolutely.
And then Sencha remade it and it managed to be faster than the native app. Also note that the actual mobile Facebook site remains as fast as the native app and was always faster than the "native" app that just used webtech. So, ironically, the webapp still wins when used and developed properly for a Facebook type app.
Native apps should always be faster except in the case where the native app isn't architected properly or web services are poorly implemented. Unfortunately, I've seen that both are often the case.
For CRUD apps like Facebook, it's often easier to do them right as web apps, but a good native app developer with a good backend team should almost always be able to beat them.
In that case it's incredibly disappointing that Twitter or Facebook's mobile apps continue to be every bit as fast as their native apps. I KNOW that you are right, as I've said, I'm well aware and worried of the overhead of doing things like video decoding in the browser... but for literally a few http requests, infinite scrolling and TEXT... (which is Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Path, etc, etc, etc)... Chrome for Android is simply going to be as fast as the native app.
I agree about Reddit, Twitter, etc, but the fact that these apps even exist and they're so popular tells a lot about the capabilities of web apps. It's so bad that websites create apps to access websites and on HN people applaud the huge progresses in web design...
As for the last statement, and much of the others, I'm not even sure what you're asking. If you want a nice syntax for it, then yeah, wait for the spec to be finished. Otherwise, you're probably implementing that logic yourself. The same as if you want a native app to pull in different assets (unless we're talking about UI assets and a sane OS, but still, it's not like that's a compelling lacking feature).
Look, I'd be happy to be wrong but there are half a dozen inaccuracies in this very article about what is possible with web technology and how browsers themselves work.
Am I suggesting Angry Birds in web tech (even though it's already been done): No. Am I suggesting that shit basic apps like Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc make more sense as simple, functional, accessible webapps? Absolutely.