Every few years someone else comes out and says the browser will be used to provide all or many of the applications. There is some truth to this in that there are many online services/applications which you do make use through the browser, but the vast majority of applications that people use are not delivered via the browser and I don’t expect this to change significantly in the near future as there are too many benefits from locally run applications.

As for the mobile phone, the browser experience is not that great and especially with the iPhone you see more and more custom apps instead of pushing people to the browser. As you mentioned in your article, the mobile phone is not the same as a desktop and data input is more difficult when browser apps are intended for computers and not phones.

At the end of the day the reality of the situation will win out no matter what any evangelist says. People will use whats convenient and in many cases that will be local applications. Finally on additional point is even today you are not guaranteed network connectivity at all times which means browser based apps may not be available. HTML5 helps with this but does not solve the problem.