Fragmentation of web standards through custom platform solutions
Bill, I couldn't agree more with the last paragraph of your article.
These are just web services and therefore shouldn't require custom solutions per device: CSS media type should take care of that for near or complete automatic re-purposing of content for different platforms with different screens.
Fragmenting the standards, iPhone Apps that just serve up information are one example of this when the web was all about equality, compatibility and open standards. Another is iPhone banking Apps, again, banks have already provided secure web based systems.
If iPhone Multi-touch capability is made use of then there is a justification, unless web standards that handle events (e.g. Javascript) can cope with such gestures. We already have onClick() event etc. what about onPinch() event.
The commercial hunger of a company to push through enhancements to the user experience, on the other hand might be required, putting pressure on perhaps slower, maybe unfocused, committee-led standards bodies to catch up.
The .mobi standard and W3C need to push forward with open standard equivalents, perhaps?