I just tried viewing this fellow's website through an iPad and an iPhone, and am pleased to report that he had the native good sense to make sure his site didn't look like garbage on a mobile device before singing the praises of the mobile web.
However. This good sense is far from universal, yet. When I browse the web on my mobile device, I stumble across a lot of pages that look as if they've never been viewed on a mobile browser - or, worse, that seem to think I'm using a mobile browser from 2003. Many other sites still use Flash - it will probably be another five years before the last one of those gets the memo that Apple mailed four years ago. And even the sites that have a mobile design often use stock frameworks like OnSwipe, which I find to be an effective commercial for native apps or, for that matter, unstyled plain text.
In short, it's too early in the web's counterattack to deem it effective. For at least another year, that app icon is more valuable than a hyperlink, because it provides evidence that at least one programmer has spent at least five minutes looking at the app on a mobile device before signing off on it.
However. This good sense is far from universal, yet. When I browse the web on my mobile device, I stumble across a lot of pages that look as if they've never been viewed on a mobile browser - or, worse, that seem to think I'm using a mobile browser from 2003. Many other sites still use Flash - it will probably be another five years before the last one of those gets the memo that Apple mailed four years ago. And even the sites that have a mobile design often use stock frameworks like OnSwipe, which I find to be an effective commercial for native apps or, for that matter, unstyled plain text.
In short, it's too early in the web's counterattack to deem it effective. For at least another year, that app icon is more valuable than a hyperlink, because it provides evidence that at least one programmer has spent at least five minutes looking at the app on a mobile device before signing off on it.