With OS Sonoma, Apple will finally allow users to save website and Progressive Web Apps from Safari, and have them accessible form the browser. Although it's nothing new (and possible to do with other browsers), the fact that Apple is not fighting against them a strong signal imo. As a fairly new FE dev, I wonder whether we're going towards a direction where native apps will become less common, in favor of PWAs or similars.
Or, to ask it differently: what are the advantages of developing native apps nowadays? Sure performance is a big argument atm, but will we get to a point where the difference is negligible? If so, what then?
You said you're a fairly new front end dev; is it safe to assume you're also fairly young, maybe early-to-mid 20s?<p>If so, have I ever got an answer for you! I was fortunate enough to grow up on computers in the late 80s and beyond.<p>How many 'web apps' did I use pre-broadband? Zero. How many desktop apps did I use? Well, I don't know, but it was a lot. A lot more than now.<p>So the future is here -- we're already past the point of web apps being more common place than desktop apps, sans browser. Since we're already past the point where your original question has meaning, take a look at the desktop apps that surround you today and tell us what cannot be replaced and why.<p>We can see cloud-based AA/AAA gaming is largely a failure for now, as a very easy example. And of course, all of that infrastructure and software that runs those websites is native to some degree.