Indeed, we've been advocating this approach since Aug 2, 2008. But to be more specific, when PhoneGap was first developed it would load the HTML/CSS/JavaScript from a server just like a chrome-less browser with the url hard coded. Unfortunately Apple started to reject apps that used PhoneGap because they felt it violated this rule which forced us to change how it works to have the web assets already packaged in the application.
We later found out that Apple thought PhoneGap was our own custom version of webkit which is what actually concerned them more. Once they came to learn more about the implementation detail on how PhoneGap works it started to become accepted but this was a very long process.
To clarify, 1) Apple hasn't always approved apps packaged with PhoneGap. 2) PhoneGap hasn't always taken this approach (although this was the initial design).
We later found out that Apple thought PhoneGap was our own custom version of webkit which is what actually concerned them more. Once they came to learn more about the implementation detail on how PhoneGap works it started to become accepted but this was a very long process.
To clarify, 1) Apple hasn't always approved apps packaged with PhoneGap. 2) PhoneGap hasn't always taken this approach (although this was the initial design).