Web and web wrappers are still no way to build an app

I've been playing with Polymer these last few months and was very impressed by how organized and clean the framework was. The combination of web components and shims and JS Classes melded quite well with one another, better than I have experienced with other frameworks. It got me excited that maybe Google had succeeded in creating a system that would allow for more app-like web-experiences through some hidden magic.

It was a big assumption. It was wishful thinking. On desktop things worked wonderfully, but unfortunately there is no getting around what was also true 8-years ago - browsers are just not able to support the fine tune detail required to stuff UI (animation, interactions and all)into an app on your device. Something that reacts well to a no-keyboard, thumb-based UI. Something as simple as focusing in and out of an input box still makes the keyboard and your UI go nuts.

After all this time I get the sense that the level of detail required to create a beautifully functioning app, and a browser's ability to render a wide range of HTML, will never find a balance.

I think things haven't improved as much as I'd would have hoped because of the security measures a browser must enforce in order to restrict a developer from hacking a user's experience negatively. Therefor a developer, even one's with altruistic ambitions, will never get the access they need to manipulate how the browser renders in a beautiful way.

Anyone have other thoughts on the matter? Is there still a debate over this or has everyone come to the same conclusion?