Now that the App Store for iPhone has launched, everyone is excited about native apps. However, John Alsop took a look in detail at the business models for Web apps and native apps and concluded that native apps are not as appealing. In fact, they could be a great leap backwards.

First, Mr. Alsop argues that most of what’s done with native apps, aside from the Apple remote and few others, can be achieved with Web apps using HTML, CSS and Javascript. Also, nowadays, Web developers can have their icon on the iPhone home screen, making it even look like a native app.

Given that, Mr. Also went on to argue that few of the native apps "do very little tapping into the shared resources and intelligence of the Web." Not to mention that native apps are iPhone specific whereas Web apps are cross platform, iPhone developers will have to re-write their apps for other platforms such as Nokia, Android, etc.

In addition, there are a host of other problems. When the developer updates the app, Apple gets to decide when the update is pushed out. In fact, Apple is the gatekeeper in general. Web apps are updated instantly for all users

Possibly the most compelling argument is the financial model. Mr. Alsop went into detail about how, if a competitor’s app is good enough, it’s unlikely you’ll ever see a sale for your app from that customer. In addition, subscription models for Web app services provide a continuing cash flow which is good. However, native apps that sell for, say, US$1.95, will have to sell in very large (one time) numbers to support, after Apple’s 30 percent take, a self sustaining software business if the developer wants to earn even a modest US$50K/year.

"The iPhone has amazing standards based support for developing applications - CSS/HTML/Javascript. Applications which will also run on the desktop browsers, on other mobile devices, on the Chumby, on your fridge, on your Wii, on Panasonic Viera televisions, and devices not yet even built. It’s time to put platform specific fragmentation behind us, and write applications for the one true platform. The Web," Mr. Alsop concluded.

While the responses in the comments point out a few debatable items, and the article doesn’t take into account native apps on future Apple platforms, the overall arguments are sufficient to give any serious developer pause and ponder their business model well for native apps.