Although, Soundnode doesn't seem to be a true native app, as others have pointed out.
The look & feel argument is total bullshit at least for me. Every native app I am using is completely different. The only consistent look & feel is with ms office apps like excel, word and powerpoint.
Performance is also a lot about how and who wrote the app rather than if the app is native. It's just harder and requires a lot of knowledge to make javascript app perform well, but it's not some impossibility.
And yes, standards are still creating too high level APIs and it takes forever to gain more and more access to the same things native apps have. But that will get better due to extensible web manifesto.
Where the data resides is not a distinction between web apps and native apps. See Apple's bundled apps, like Notes, Contacts, etc.: you can access the same data via a website or through native iOS/OS X apps.
However, one advantage that native apps have when it comes to accessing cloud data, is that you can still access and update that data even when you have no connection to the internet.
> which is why Apple is deliberately keeping Safari in 2010
What do you mean with this?
> The only consistent look & feel is with ms office apps like excel, word and powerpoint.
This sounds like you are primarily a Windows user, where indeed, MS Office apps seem to be the only ones that share a consistent look-&-feel among them. Even Windows' own applets vary wildly in how they present basic UI elements (like toolbars and Control Panels.)
The overall situation, while with its own unique flaws, is much more coherent on OS X, across all vendors.
> Performance is also a lot about how and who wrote the app rather than if the app is native.
True, but web apps will always be removed from the underlying OS's "metal" by at least one degree, no?
Huh? The data is only accessible to native app after you have installed the app on a device. If you only ever use your own one desktop, then it's probably hard for you to see this. Can you even try to imagine that you cannot just install arbitrary native app on let's say, your friend's device to access your data? But you can easily "install" a web app, since technically it's just a website like this one.
> What do you mean with this?
http://nolanlawson.com/2015/06/30/safari-is-the-new-ie/
> However, one advantage that native apps have when it comes to accessing cloud data, is that you can still access and update that data even when you have no connection to the internet.
https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2015/12/background...
> True, but web apps will always be removed from the underlying OS's "metal" by at least one degree, no?
Not always now that Web Assembly will be implemented by browsers. (Not to be confused with "asm.js", see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebAssembly)
Whether the UI of the standalone app is more polished that's debatable, but as far as "isolating a service to a program" and "being able to close the browser fully without closing down music" go - in and of themselves - using another browser in paralel looks sort of equivalent to it.
I don't rule out there could be some other advantages of this solution, like smaller memory footprint etc., I addressed the specific reasons given by the parent commenter
In general I'm a user who never downloads apps on my phone (unless there's something I find unsuited to my browser) - but for a music player I want it to be quickly isolated for skipping, pause, etc etc.