I've never actually been able to get a confirmation one way or the other oh which of Google's native apps are "hybrid" apps and just how much of those apps is done in HTML5. The previous version of their gmail app seemed to employ a lot of HTML5 because you could see the main inbox list re-render occasionally. That app performed perfectly well for me. Unless we hear from Google officially about the new app we'll never know. It could be that it's full native, or it could be that they've perfected the HTML5 code to make it feel completely native. Who knows.
I assume the current Gmail is mostly written in native code because it is faster and there are elements in it that don't exist on the web site.
The original was just a wrapper for the web site which had unusually high negatives from users and reviewers alike. I never used it since I read the reviews before I actually downloaded it.
It's certainly not fully native. It has a number of issues that make it a poor experience in my opinion.
- Emulated scrolling feels wrong. This is my biggest issue.
- Slow launch and mailbox load time.
- Numerous short pauses while navigating.
It's a big improvement over the previous iteration, sure, but as a user I don't see why I should lower my standards just because Google (a company not short of engineering resources) chooses to advocate a particular technology.
