IIRC Jobs specifically mentioned that the built-in apps couldn't have been built to the same quality if they were Web apps. But then he told developers to write Web apps. So either he had a "native for us, Web for you" policy or he was just stalling until the App Store was ready. I'm inclined to take him at his word, but considering RDF we may never know for sure.
Or door #3: steve jobs thought 3rd party apps would do more to ruin the experience than to improve it, and all-in-all users were better off without them. Given his control freak tendencies, I'm inclined to believe that last option.
At the time that he said that, did Jobs indicate that web apps on iOS would ever be given hooks into the accelerometers, or GPS, or mic? Because if not, what would the point be?
