I've got two mobile app (families) planned for the first year. They will both be browser based at first; but one will move to native as it is available. The one that will stay browser based will be for users who will use it only occasionally: it's not an everyday app, just has a very wide potential user base. The second is just the opposite: small, targeted user base, and used many times a day.

HTML5 may make it some day, but for the next few years, at least, displaying the DOM, even with tricks like pre-architecting segments on the back end, will be noticeably slower than native apps (because the direct access to video feature of HTML5 is a long way from becoming fact). Plus there's the persistent storage issue in HTML: as Thomas has noted, the best solution was ousted by the powers that be, with a PR blitz (about MySQL not being a standard) worthy of the presidential campaigns.

Depending on how a browser app is deployed, it can have an Icon.

Hank

>>As per previous posts there are numerous vendors who earned their billions from served web interfaces (e.g. ebay, priceline, godaddy, amazon) who nevertheless promote locally installed apps for mobile devices. Why? Perhaps it's temporary pending 100% reliable mobile networks- though the niche experts assert that there never can be such a thing.
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>Does an installed app put an icon on your device? If so, that's eyeball share you don't get with a generic browser. Also starting an app has to be faster than starting the same functionality delivered via a browser. Eliminate any impedance between users and your goods and services.