I've been waiting for the day when Apple axes the "Add To Home Screen" functionality entirely. It's a holdover from pre-App Store days, and has been sadly neglected; iOS7 shipped with several show-stopper bugs [1], only some of which have been fixed.
I have a feeling that they only keep HTML5 apps around as a pre-emptive defense against anti-trust.
Agreed. It was a great feature when the iPhone launched but it's barely been touched since. Yet amazingly, it's still the best. Android Chrome only just got Add To Homescreen functionality and it doesn't yet do anything special.
It's even more disappointing that Apple has implemented web push notifications... on desktop only. It's a natural fit for their webapp functionality but I don't hear anything about it being implemented. That plus the ability to register a URL scheme would really be all I'd want from Apple.
It can really do a whole lot special with Add to Homescreen as Chrome is running Mobile Safari underneath (the hobbled version for 3rd party browsers) and can't really interact with the OS as much as it can on Android.
I don't understand the idea that Apple is secretly opposed to the web. Why would they keep investing in WebKit then? Why re-build iWork in HTML5? Why add web notifications?
iOS 7 was a pretty shaky release in general, Apple's own native apps haven't received a lot of love during the transition either.
It's a sin of omission. They're not opposed to the web, but they're not pushing it forward as much as they could, either.
> Why re-build iWork in HTML5?
Windows.
> Why add web notifications?
...for Mac only. I strongly doubt web notifications will ever appear on iOS.
To be fair, Apple has been a much more responsible steward of the mobile web than Microsoft in the IE6 days, but that's damning by faint praise. Ultimately, they care most about their closed app ecosystem, and the web is an afterthought by comparison.
I have a feeling that they only keep HTML5 apps around as a pre-emptive defense against anti-trust.
[1] http://www.mobilexweb.com/blog/safari-ios7-html5-problems-ap...