What I meant, was initially people were pixel-painting fixed screens and 2D/3D graphic programming evolved as one branch, and GUI app frameworks evolved as another (MacApp anyone?). If you look at earlier Mac/Windows/X app frameworks and iOS/Android app frameworks, you'll see that the latter is a more naive and easy solution to the same problem without the burden of multiple docs, windows and massive multitasking. I'm talking about windows, views, user interface controls, dialogs, textboxes, styling and finally inputs (events). HTML/CSS/JS is a string based natural solution to the same problem.

Finally, current native programming does not get its power from any advanced technique or technology but only due to its privileged position in an underpowered computing device with a smaller screens and newer touch input methods and hardware. This way, mobile GUI API designers didn't have most of the problems of large screen OS framework API designers had. When I look at their APIs, they are too simple, nothing fundamentally new.

So as mobile devices get better in general computing, a post html world may come back, with stringified description of UI elements.