Re: But surely anything better than an "app" for everything ?
I agree -- for things that are web-based services, stop trying to push apps on me all the time. I'm thinking of LinkedIn but many others also apply. Why do they all want me to have their app when they've already done a pretty good job of making the mobile web version very usable?
For apps that work offline (surely that's unthinkable to the likes of Google?) maybe an app is better. I've not used one of these so-called progressive things.