The two benefits
- webapps don't need to be explicitly downloaded
- webapps don't need to be explicitly updated
Sound good but downloading and updating was never a problem in the eyes of the general consumer. On the other hand
- native apps are faster
And that's a compelling benefit for that even non technical people will prefer native apps for.
The other killer „feature“ of webapps is that you can have a single one for multiple platforms.
That's a feature for developers, not consumers. Consumers will be unhappy if you tell them your mobile app doesn't exist on the app store and must be downloaded from some third party website.
I don't know whether Jobs really wanted the iPhone to be open all along and was just playing dumb with his "sweet solution" of anemic web apps. Some of what I've heard from others supports the idea that he really did think web apps would work, but it also seems to be common knowledge that they were working on what became the iPad before the iPhone, and it seems pretty unlikely that they were planning to shop that without support for third-party applications -- although, of course, they might not have been thinking of an app store.
I read a while ago that Steve Jobs never wanted the idea of an App Store on iOS, as he believed webapps and web based services would evolve naturally without any added infrastructure, whereas an App Store would require extreme development effort and infrastructure from Apple.
Obviously he was wrong, and the App Store exploded once it was added.
However, I believe long term his idea is correct, it was just wrong timing. Webapps have only gotten more and more powerful as time has gone on, and they do not require any explicit download from the user and can be updated automatically by the developer. More and more access to the devices physical resources is slowly being added as the years go on, and it’s only a matter of time until more and more are added.
I will admit for scenarios like games or resource intensive computing where access to bare metal is necessary, I’m not sure webapps will be able to fill that void. But for most everything else I see the web as a the future, while mobile apps are the temporary means to an end while browser APIs and capabilities catch up