There was a very recent post here on HN about the way chrome guys wanted to add support for shadow dom features so fast that people in the w3c asked them to at least write some specification first. That post made me think that the web isn't going to win over native for mobile before at least two years, if not more. The specification process is both compulsory for the web to simply "work", but it's also very cumbersome.

Another aspect is that mobile / tablette apps are moving from a "mostly read" to a "read/edit" usage, thanks to the exponential power gains inmobile CPU. That means what the web will have to compete against on mobile isn't facebook stream but rather full blown photoshop.

The web will persist. But it won't win anything. Nor will native apps win anything. With time we will finally accept "the right tool for the job" stance and stop forcing round pegs into square holes.

It's not necessarily a conflict that has an end. Because web-based stuff is standards-based, you'll always have a lag between state of the art and what is available in a standard. IMO, that's a good thing -- it pressures the market to continue innovating.

People at Netscape were talking about the web displacing native applications twenty years ago. That hasn't happened yet!

I want it to win, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to gauge the accuracy of such a claim. To me, it seems the largest of native mobile apps on any platform have a web component of some sort.

I'm in favor of application logic living on the web, with native apps used on the frontend for consumption.