NPR app was put together quite quickly and was intended by it's authors as a demo of though capabilities of www.Sproutcore.com

Let's not miss the larger point here. HTML5 have become a real option of application development. A business that relies on mobile/tablet form factor should seriously consider HTML5 as the application platform. The cost of porting iPhone/iPad apps to Android phones/tablets is much less with HTML5 than with native code.

Lack of distribution and monetization of HTML5 apps doesn't need to be an issue. A web app can be embedded into a native app to be sold on the AppStore.

Same here. What i wonder is whether mobile web app thingie is going to get better over time or if it's going to stay half-broken forever.