It's a curious thing why apps have become so popular. iPhone and iPad users tend to prefer using them to using a web browser. And they're becoming so popular that there's speculation that they may eventually take over the TV interface. Remember that Apple at first had no intention of letting programmers create apps for the iPhone. Rather, developers were forced to create "web apps" — iPhone-sized websites that had the same sorts of discrete functions as do today's apps. And the conventional wisdom back in 2007 was that this was the way to go.