We can go back and forth on Apple's policies but there's a clear lesson here and I hope everyone takes note...
Build as much of your app as you can in HTML 5.
I'm not talking about a web app. You can embed safari into your native app. As far as I can tell this app could have been almost entirely built with HTML 5 elements and if they'd done that (did that?) they could walk it over to Android with very little rewrite.
With Apple's "murky" policies it's just too much of a risk to develop for Apple alone and with the ability to embed html elements Apple's given developers an easy way not to be left in the cold
A simpler explanation - Apple does not want apps to create a desktop like experience, because they want their OWN crafted user experience to be the dominant one. This leads to consistency, and not messing wit ha user's expectations.
Build as much of your app as you can in HTML 5.
I'm not talking about a web app. You can embed safari into your native app. As far as I can tell this app could have been almost entirely built with HTML 5 elements and if they'd done that (did that?) they could walk it over to Android with very little rewrite.
With Apple's "murky" policies it's just too much of a risk to develop for Apple alone and with the ability to embed html elements Apple's given developers an easy way not to be left in the cold