Stuff like this is probably good from a consumer perspective. From a "state of the web" perspective (and speaking as a web geek/professional), this is terrible. Yet another step away from the openness of the web and into the walled garden of platform-specific apps. I thought we had already voted as a planet to embrace what the web represents. Walled gardens like Compuserve, Prodigy, (old) AOL, etc.<p>Why can't links go to a mobile-optimized website, and from there (if I chose) I can decide to open that content in a native app? The browser should be the first destination of links.
Yes please... Anything to get past crappy mobile websites. At least most mobile websites with apps (or is it baked into iOS?) are smart enough to give you an option to open an app after the page loads.<p>And from a retailer's standpoint, how could you not use this? You basically bring someone exactly to where they asked to go and exactly to where you want them to go.