The only true advantage the hybrid approach offers is improved interface performance, but that comes at the great cost of (1) increased complexity (multiple technologies, possibly multiple teams), (2) poor distribution and conversion (install require), (3) dealing with draconian app store approval bureaucracy, and (4) speed of tech and design iteration much slower than the web.
The gap for this sweet spot is going to close very rapidly over the next year or so due to work being done by us at famo.us and engineers working on react/om.
DHH, like others love to point out Facebook's decision to pull out of HTML5, but that is going to become a tired meme. One of the FB engineering managers, Dave Fetterman, who was instrumental in making the call to go with HTML5 and then reversed course towards native, is now the VP of engineering here at Famo.us. That's a testament to what's possible soon, since typically someone doesn't go back an revisit what many people popularly consider to be be a mistake unless there is real value there on the horizon. The fact that Fetterman is back working on this problem and that Pete Hunt and team at Facebook is actively working on react is testament to the performance that's now achievable without having to be a javascript neckbeard.
If you were a web developer that left the web years ago for native land, or you have always been in native land and were waiting for the web to catch up, now is the time to start exploring what's possible. There will always be a use case for native technologies, but the web is going to gut a lot of the current use cases for native over the next 1-3 years. When that happens, there is going to be a glut of iOS and Android devs and a dearth of javascript developers who really know how to build great web apps.
(disclaimer: I work for famo.us)
The gap for this sweet spot is going to close very rapidly over the next year or so due to work being done by us at famo.us and engineers working on react/om.
DHH, like others love to point out Facebook's decision to pull out of HTML5, but that is going to become a tired meme. One of the FB engineering managers, Dave Fetterman, who was instrumental in making the call to go with HTML5 and then reversed course towards native, is now the VP of engineering here at Famo.us. That's a testament to what's possible soon, since typically someone doesn't go back an revisit what many people popularly consider to be be a mistake unless there is real value there on the horizon. The fact that Fetterman is back working on this problem and that Pete Hunt and team at Facebook is actively working on react is testament to the performance that's now achievable without having to be a javascript neckbeard.
If you were a web developer that left the web years ago for native land, or you have always been in native land and were waiting for the web to catch up, now is the time to start exploring what's possible. There will always be a use case for native technologies, but the web is going to gut a lot of the current use cases for native over the next 1-3 years. When that happens, there is going to be a glut of iOS and Android devs and a dearth of javascript developers who really know how to build great web apps.
(disclaimer: I work for famo.us)