I couldn't disagree more. iPhone devs who write native apps are trying to get the best usability out of their products - have you played with an iPhone webapp recently? They approximate the native experience, poorly. The UI doesn't flow, it's not fast, it's not responsive - it's a pale shadow compared to a native app, even for mundane tasks like menus and buttons.
There's "good enough" and "excellent" - these are not the same thing. It seems like the webapp apologists are in the "good enough" camp, and they're certainly right: Apple's webapp facilities are good enough.
But they're not great, and great UI is the defining feature of the iPhone. If you lose it all you have is a piece of plastic that has fewer features than the competition. IMHO also, the constant settling for "good enough" UI is a hallmark of programmer-driven UI, which rarely results in usable apps by regular people.
Another important argument in favor of a native app over a webapp is the iPod Touch - sales of the Touch are doubling year over year, getting pretty close to the iPhone, in terms of units sold.
Requiring iPod Touch owners to connect to wifi before they access your webapp just puts another hurdle between you and your users, one which they won't always be able to clear.
That is a great point, although there are some things you can do with local caching it's not really a solution in that instance.
My main argument is, as a developer you KNOW what the App store approval process is like, it's been beaten to death all over the Internet. So either accept that you're going to have to play by Apple's rules or make a web app and save yourself the trouble. It's Apple's garden and we all just play in it.
There's "good enough" and "excellent" - these are not the same thing. It seems like the webapp apologists are in the "good enough" camp, and they're certainly right: Apple's webapp facilities are good enough.
But they're not great, and great UI is the defining feature of the iPhone. If you lose it all you have is a piece of plastic that has fewer features than the competition. IMHO also, the constant settling for "good enough" UI is a hallmark of programmer-driven UI, which rarely results in usable apps by regular people.