when Windows Phone 8 gets released, Facebook will be available for it from day 1, just as it is available on any phone that has a web browser.
Not really. Some amount of development effort will be required to ensure compatibility with any given platform browser. Certainly cross-browser compatibility has gotten better in the nearly 20 years of WWW existence, but it is not perfect. And additionally, you'll have to consider various platform issues such as the upload field on <iOS6 you mention. Alternatively, if Facebook were to work on a native Windows Phone 8 app, they'd potentially have it available from day 1. They have the resources and they'd likely have abundant support from Microsoft.
wrap that HTML in an app container that would let them bypass the browser restrictions (like uploading of files). But this was a bad idea, at least because the web view on iOS has much worse performance characteristics than the browser.
And at most because every other top-tier app which went native instead of HTML provided a vastly improved user experience. Facebook and Google web view apps look and behave antiquated in comparison. Not exactly putting your best foot forward. Google has moved faster, where the G+ app is now native on iOS, providing (perhaps) an improved user experience (at least a valiant effort at one, anyway).
I can't speak for everyone, but exactly how long are we supposed to wait for HTML to become a write-once environment that enables as-good-as native apps? We've had nearly 20 years to address those two issues on the desktop and still both issues exist. I just don't see that ever happening. And users will notice.
Not really. Some amount of development effort will be required to ensure compatibility with any given platform browser. Certainly cross-browser compatibility has gotten better in the nearly 20 years of WWW existence, but it is not perfect. And additionally, you'll have to consider various platform issues such as the upload field on <iOS6 you mention. Alternatively, if Facebook were to work on a native Windows Phone 8 app, they'd potentially have it available from day 1. They have the resources and they'd likely have abundant support from Microsoft.
wrap that HTML in an app container that would let them bypass the browser restrictions (like uploading of files). But this was a bad idea, at least because the web view on iOS has much worse performance characteristics than the browser.
And at most because every other top-tier app which went native instead of HTML provided a vastly improved user experience. Facebook and Google web view apps look and behave antiquated in comparison. Not exactly putting your best foot forward. Google has moved faster, where the G+ app is now native on iOS, providing (perhaps) an improved user experience (at least a valiant effort at one, anyway).
I can't speak for everyone, but exactly how long are we supposed to wait for HTML to become a write-once environment that enables as-good-as native apps? We've had nearly 20 years to address those two issues on the desktop and still both issues exist. I just don't see that ever happening. And users will notice.