First, it’s not fair to say they “strongly opposed” native apps “not long before” the essay. Every iPhone model has supported native apps through the App Store. Yes, web apps was their original plan, but they announced their intention to launch a native SDK just three months after the original iPhone release. It took another thirty months before this essay was published, so in relative terms, at that time that original plan was nothing but a historical parenthetical.

Second, this is completely irrelevant to claiming that the essay in question suggests developing mobile apps with HTML5. That’s just flat-out incorrect.