After some thought, the best way of handling this would be...

- Use phonegap, so we effectively create a hybrid app -- keeping all Composr's existing server-side processing functionality and templating, but a native experience and native performance, for all mobile devices

- Make a new addon, with a script that creates a phonegap project

- The phonegap project will have the front page hard-coded into it (i.e. accessible prior to any network requests), generated from a live page when the project was compiled, the live page called up &keep_phonegap=static in the URL (allowing you to customise templates / comcode pages, to strip out live-data and replace it with 'Loading' markers). A $PHONEGAP symbol would need adding to allow a developer to detect this mode (similar to the current $MOBILE). $PHONEGAP also needs to imply $MOBILE.

- The phonegap project will contain all the CSS and Javascript and theme images, compiled in to the app itself

- A page pre-processor will be written in Javascript, and compiled into the phonegap project. It takes received Composr pages and rewrites them to make <a> and <form> requests actually go through Javascript URLs that perform the requests via AJAX. The AJAX request URL has keep_phonegap=dynamic on, allowing pages to be specially tweaked for Phonegap. The result is injected back into the web view, stripping out any references to remote resources that are compiled in locally (CSS, Javascript, images) and replacing those with local references. Additionally the new HTML is injected in such a way as to not require a complete Composr-JS-reinit, but that the new HTML is still properly processed.

- As a side-note, this AJAXificiation technique will be useful within the normal desktop Composr, to make a slicker navigation experience, with transition effects, and the ability to do frameless overlays. So it may be worth doing this all as one thing.

- Make use of the $PHONEGAP symbol in the default Composr, to allow a reasonable default native experience without a programmer strictly being needed

- Make Composr upload fields be able to tie in to the native device camera

- Tie in device notifications to the Composr private topic inbox

- Consider also implementing a new Composr notification type for direct native notifications http://compo.sr/tracker/view.php?id=492

- Tie in recommend-site module to device contacts

- Allow taking a picture, or video, and send it direct to the cms_galleries module, or to a private topic of a friend

- If the menu button on a device is pressed, display a native-like set of menu links, driven by an Composr menu named '_device_menu'.

- Write a production tutorial

- Explain that native apps need programmers to customise and deploy, it's not as simple as installing Composr on web hosting

- Explain that while phonegap supports many platforms, packaging, testing, support, and approval will need doing for each - so you don't quite get each platform for the cost of one

- Explain that native apps must be approved by Apple/etc, there's no guarantee, regardless of how much you invest or who you are

- Guide for designers, explaining to use something like Sencha Touch (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sencha_Touch) to make a nice mobile UI inside Composr templates.

- ... and that the $MOBILE symbol should be used to chop around the CSS and templates, to serve just what we want to mobiles (not responsive design, that's not good enough for complex mobile UIs)

- Some designers will want to work in static HTML and get the static work integrated into templates by an Composr developer -- describe this workflow

- This would all be for phones, which often have slow network access and where we want to make use of the camera and get closer to native to offset the fiddliness of the device. Explain that tablets are best dealt with as pure webapps, using responsive design, which Composr v10 will have a bit of.

- Suggest to template out links to administration, etc - it is reasonable to limit what level of admin can be done through mobile devices, to reduce cost and increase simplicity

If a user is viewing the webapp, and has a compatible device, give them a link to the app in their device's app store. iOS: "smart app banners".

Closing this, as I am opening up new cleaner issues, under the "Type: Mobile" tag.