LIExposeController

I wonder the same about mobile web apps. Why try so hard to make the visual design and user experience so similar to a native app...when you're not a native app? I'm sure LinkedIn spent an inordinate amount of time tweaking javascript to approximate native scrolling behavior, but as you note, it's just nowhere near the mark. I commend LinkedIn for open-sourcing[0] pieces of their app, but when user experience is a paramount concern, there is no substitute for native. Ditto for Facebook's iPhone app. Most users may not be able to articulate why things don't feel quite right, but you can bet they'll notice it. [0] https://github.com/linkedin/LIExposeController

This is basically a HTML5 app with a native wrapper for all the things you need access rights to - security, storage, comm etc... From their dev. site (http://engineering.linkedin.com/mobile/linkedin-ipad-using-l...) "...LinkedIn just released a brand new iPad app built using HTML5, backbone.js, and underscore.js. The app includes a rich stream of information which is a combination of network updates, group posts and news articles..." Also interesting their code to create what they call a "container view controller" is available under Apache at https://github.com/linkedin/LIExposeController Guess you can / you do build something similar when you create an app with PhoneGap.