It is true that companies like Patagonia don't need a native app. In fact, most native apps from large media companies and brands are unnecessary.
However, I also think the "native app" form factor has not been explored to its full potential. There are definitely a lot of benefits to apps being native, and they're not what most people think.
One of the most under-appreciated reason is that you have a dedicated icon you can press to enter a new world. This works both ways, because in the current world we live in, people don't want a "dedicated icon" for every single brand they engage with. But this is where my point starts:
People use bookmarks because they want to easily access things they frequently use. The problem is, the appstore is filled with apps that people don't use frequently enough and don't care enough about. We are forced to "bookmark" every single app we download. That's why people don't like clogging up their "bookmark screen" and end up deleting apps.
On the other hand, I think there are tons of potential apps that are NOT being built, that I would be happy to keep on my home screen if they existed. For example, let's say I visit a certain indie coffee shop every day. I would download their app if they had an app that makes my life easier. For example they could have a Starbucks-like app where I can order stuff easily without staying lining up. Also, I would download an app that's super customized for a community I am very attached to.
Then why don't we have these apps in real life? The problem is these organizations and small coffee shops and our small interest groups don't have time and money to build these apps. And not even considering time and money, they just don't want to bother since they have a lot on their hands already.
I think, once we make it extremely easy to build an app (and I'm not even talking about all the "app builders" out there. It should be as easy as copy and pasting MySpace scripts), we will have more useful and personal apps that people would actually want to keep on their screen, just like a bookmark. We are just not there yet.
I've been working on a project that's along this line of thought. It's basically a native app meets browser, where you can send an entire app over HTTP (just like websites), but it translates into 100% native components and native function calls. If you're interested check it out here: https://github.com/Jasonette/JASONETTE-iOS Would love to hear thoughts in the current thread context.