Many seem to be missing the point here. While native in the mobile context, has the potential to be faster, it's a necessary, but not sufficient condition for superior responsiveness and usability.
Even with the native app, the same poor design decisions are being repeated once again. For example, not caching data locally between screens - an especially egregious oversight in the context of mobile networking.
I think the broader issue however, is just how out of touch Mark Zuckerberg was with regards to mobile and perhaps even emerging web technology in general.
He eventually admitted to screwing up (great!), but then got it so wrong again, by declaring HTML5 as the culprit. The problem was almost certainly more attributable to people and management issues, rather than a technological misstep, irrespective of whether that resulted in a more palatable conclusion for Mr Zuckerberg's ego.
As for the Sencha demo, after installing it on my iPhone 4s it works really well, and installing it as app on the home screen makes it virtually indistinguishable from native. I think it's fair to say this is a rather significant achievement by Sencha, indeed considering it's a part time effort.
Which makes one wonder what a full time team, with the right leadership and resources, could have achieved at Facebook.
Even with the native app, the same poor design decisions are being repeated once again. For example, not caching data locally between screens - an especially egregious oversight in the context of mobile networking.
I think the broader issue however, is just how out of touch Mark Zuckerberg was with regards to mobile and perhaps even emerging web technology in general.
He eventually admitted to screwing up (great!), but then got it so wrong again, by declaring HTML5 as the culprit. The problem was almost certainly more attributable to people and management issues, rather than a technological misstep, irrespective of whether that resulted in a more palatable conclusion for Mr Zuckerberg's ego.
As for the Sencha demo, after installing it on my iPhone 4s it works really well, and installing it as app on the home screen makes it virtually indistinguishable from native. I think it's fair to say this is a rather significant achievement by Sencha, indeed considering it's a part time effort.
Which makes one wonder what a full time team, with the right leadership and resources, could have achieved at Facebook.