Your boss wasn't far off base. A web application is not a replacement for a native application, even if you bundle it up in a UIWebView and sell it through the app store.

My organization works in a variety of languages/runtimes, from ObjC to C to assembly to the JVM. We do web, mobile, server, and OS development -- whatever is needed.

I was in a meeting recently discussing complex image processing we had implemented in C++ using OpenCV. We considered OpenCV and C++ to be the best tools for the specific job at hand, which is why we chose them over the alternatives.

A life-long Flash developer -- who has a heavy investment in Flash remaining relevant in his organization -- chimed in to tell us that Flash can do the same thing, and there was no reason to use C++. In theory, we could have made Flash do our bidding, but it was the wrong tool for the job, and we quite intentionally didn't use it.

Web developers seem to apply the same logic as this Flash developer to the development of native apps. There's a much shorter description for this:

When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

I have a few 30 hour weekend projects I could turn into web apps easier than iPhone apps. There is no way anyone would pay 1-2 dollars just to use these apps on the web (among other things). I don't build anything unless it has utility and in this case, the utility is the few hundred these apps could bring in with only a few hours of dev/ui time. In this case an App is the way to go. Obviously, I don't expect to make big money from these apps. But the few hundred I would make just from putting the app on the store and doing some half ass marketing makes it worth developing.

You and your boss have never heard of PhoneGap? Not a cure all by any stretch but you can sell a web-app if you really want to go that route.

You could charge for web apps. And on the plus side, if you do, you don't have to pay anyone 30% off your price.