zlacker

Native look&feel makes for a consistent UX across apps. Users learn one set of conventions and UI controls that uniformly applies to all applications. In addition, all applications benefit from enhancements made to the native UI toolkit and integration with the OS (input methods, file dialogs, keyboard navigation, automations, …).

Moreover, web UIs tend to be less sophisticated and less power user friendly, due to HTML/CSS and browser API limitations. This unfortunately often carries over even to non-browser-based applications that however use a web-like UI.

>>layer8+(OP)
There's a slightly deeper part to this which is that if I see a native UI toolkit in use, I can be at least relatively confident that the accessibility affordances I expect to be there haven't been half-arsed in some custom widget set implementation. That's part of the "one set of conventions" expectation you mention, but it's an important one. There's a lot of embedded knowledge in native widgets.

>>layer8+(OP)
I don't personally believe it's ever been true that users want the same UI styling across apps. When given the option to customize the colors or layout of an app, users will do that. People want their applications to follow common UI patterns, but applications should have some kind of personality to them, otherwise they just look like Microsoft or Apple products

>>novaga+Yj
If you follow common UI patterns, your app will look like Apple or MS app, and there's nothing wrong with that. For a long laundry list of reasons: >>41368184