I'm the developer of Routesy (routesy.com), a public transit app for SF Muni/BART/Caltrain/AC Transit. My app has been around since the first day of the app store, and I get asked this question all the time.
The short answer is that Apple gives me two important things:
1. A decent development platform with UI controls that provide a good, familiar user experience
2. A marketplace that lets my app make money so I can afford to continue developing it
I've done some offline app development using HTML5 as well, and these apps just don't "feel" the same. Had I taken the HTML5 route, it would have been far easier for me to port my app to Android (which I haven't done yet), but my experience has been (at least for productivity and utility apps) that the more native an application feels, the better it sells.
The short answer is that Apple gives me two important things:
1. A decent development platform with UI controls that provide a good, familiar user experience 2. A marketplace that lets my app make money so I can afford to continue developing it
I've done some offline app development using HTML5 as well, and these apps just don't "feel" the same. Had I taken the HTML5 route, it would have been far easier for me to port my app to Android (which I haven't done yet), but my experience has been (at least for productivity and utility apps) that the more native an application feels, the better it sells.