The hardware isn't only getting faster, it's also getting more innovative. Here's a really important point: The new capabilities of the hardware (like accelerometers, for example) will always come to native apps first. Color couldn't be a webapp. There's natural urge from develops to want the full potential of a device. Meanwhile, no device maker is going to wait for their new feature to become a web standard before they ship it. You just can't do hardware innovation through the browser, because the whole point of the browser is to abstract the hardware away into a common generic, platform.
Essentially, he's saying that innovation by browser vendors drives innovation in general to a great degree. However, it hampers the ability of standards to do the work in some areas which need standards (such as Security).
I'd expect it to be the same with app side of things, especially with so many vendors trying to get their slice of the pie.
eg: HP's WebOS is supposedly a sort of hybrid web-native combo, RIM now has QNX, Qualcomm has Alljoyn for P2P and is pushing some fancy LTE frameworks. And let's not even get into Near-Field Communications (pretty hardware dependent) and the future of mobile payments =p.
