When the iPhone and iPod touch were released, that was exactly the solution Apple went with. They hosted a directory (www.apple.com/webapps) where everyone could submit their iPhoneOS optimized web app to be listed. Many of the web apps used local storage and you could save the shortcuts on your Springboard, just like native apps.
When the App Store came along, that directory became a wasteland. In June, Apple shut it down completely.
Apple’s iPhone User Guide was one of those web apps. Nowadays, it’s just a PDF.
Given that newer mobile OSes are going the route of web apps only, perhaps Apple was just 8 years too early with this concept (I wrote ‘8 years’, because I think we’re still 2 years off from mobile web apps being capable enough to rival basic native apps in speed.)
When the App Store came along, that directory became a wasteland. In June, Apple shut it down completely.
Apple’s iPhone User Guide was one of those web apps. Nowadays, it’s just a PDF.
Given that newer mobile OSes are going the route of web apps only, perhaps Apple was just 8 years too early with this concept (I wrote ‘8 years’, because I think we’re still 2 years off from mobile web apps being capable enough to rival basic native apps in speed.)