Return of the mobile web app

While native apps have been grabbing all the headlines, the mobile browser
situation has improved dramatically over the last couple of years. The way
that this has been achieved is completely different from how it was done
on the desktop. Rather than vendors competing with each other to make
their browser engines be the best and to support the latest standards, many
smartphone and tablet operating systems have decided to use the same
browser engine — WebKit.


The phenomenal agreement among nearly all mobile device makers to switch
to WebKit as their browser engine is an event nearly as groundbreaking as if
suddenly the world’s tweens stopped liking bad pop music and started listening
to Charlie Parker or classic 1980s punk rock (in my opinion, anyway; you
may choose your own analogy here).
What this means for anyone who wants to create a mobile app is that you
no longer need to write native code for each platform you want to support.
You can write code that runs in WebKit, and it will pretty much work on any
device with an A-Grade browser.
Not only is WebKit revolutionary because of its ubiquity, it’s also revolutionary
because it’s really good. What’s more, it also happens to be free (as in
“free beer,” yes, but more importantly, as in “free speech”).
The concept of graded browser support divides all web browsers into several
categories, according to how capable and common they are. WebKit-based
browsers are both highly capable and highly common. This puts them solidly
in the A-Grade browser world.