In order to release an iPhone application without having to submit it to Apple’s insane App Store process, developers could just use Web technologies and create Web apps instead of native apps.

In other words, iPhone developers are doing it wrong. By focusing on native applications, they are subjecting themselves to Apple’s approval process unnecessarily. Safari, he argues, is all most application developers need, and the reluctance of iPhone developers to embrace web technologies has more to do with snobbery than functionality.

The fundamental problem on the iPhone is not Apple’s App Store approval policies, but the iPhone developers’ arrogant disdain for Web technologies. … They dismiss Web technologies as toys for children. JavaScript is just this little language that cannot possibly compare to real technologies such as the one they’re using. HTML is too simple. Real programmers don’t do that stuff. As to Web developers, they are just glorified pixel-pushers that should in no circumstance be taken seriously.

I agree that most iPhone applications don’t need to be native ones. I also agree that many developers — not just iPhone developers — dismiss client-side programming as kid stuff.

I suspect, however, that iPhone developers really prefer native applications because they’re trying to make money. Apple’s App Store lets developers get paid and helps them protect their product with a degree of digital rights management the web doesn’t provide.

So I bought it, but I bought it, for the first time, with misgivings. I felt the way I’d feel buying something made in a country with a bad human rights record. That was new. In the past when I bought things from Apple it was an unalloyed pleasure. Oh boy! They make such great stuff. This time it felt like a Faustian bargain. They make such great stuff, but they’re such assholes. Do I really want to support this company?

Graham continues with why Apple should care. The short version: don’t piss off the kick-ass developers you might want to have work for you one day.