Web applications on the iPad

This explains why Apple bought Quattro Wireless. Many developers are going to make the move to web-based apps (for portability, convenience, etc) and my guess is Apple's ensuring it doesn't lose much cash in the process.

AppStore isn't useful just because you get native stuff, it's essential because you need somebody to handle the actual payment from users.<p>Sure, it's easy to move some free apps towards the web, but what if you want to make some money ?

I'm sure all the missing functionality he mentions (access to camera, microphone etc) could be exposed by a development framework on top of WebKit. You can expose Objective C functions to JS - I'm sure if it hasn't already been build, it will be. You'd still have to go through the App Store approval process, but at least you could build your apps in HTML/JS, and have low level access.

Can it be true that Safari on the iPhone still doesn't support Web Workers? I've created a site to test it - Android seems to have Web Workers, but Safari (on my iPod Touch) doesn't. My test is a game AI written in JavaScript, which is difficult to do without web workers.