I agree. I like the iPhone. I use mine every day. But I've noticed this trend to make everything developed for it look and feel "like a real iPhone app" and not pay attention to other browsers. Why not develop for the web and make it look and feel like whatever it needs to look and feel like?
YC News, for instance, is very usable on the iPhone. Not surprisingly, Paul Graham's essays fit the screen perfectly. Neither seem to have been specifically designed for the iPhone, but bother work well because they are designed well.
I did consciously keep Startup News simple because I knew a news site would be something a lot of users viewed on handheld devices. I didn't plan for the iPhone specifically, but they all have small screens.
The limit of 70 characters per line on your website makes your essays easier to read -- whether on a large screen, printed, or more recently, on the iPhone. I've always liked that. A while back I started resizing wide texts in my browser because I realized from reading your essays how much easier it is to read smaller columns of text.
I mused with my partner whether archaic browser support was a form of premature optimization. Some things are easy and can be wrapped in a function to make them simpler. Others, not so much. I don't plan on testing in more than 6 browsers/versions on the 3 big platforms before release.
YC News, for instance, is very usable on the iPhone. Not surprisingly, Paul Graham's essays fit the screen perfectly. Neither seem to have been specifically designed for the iPhone, but bother work well because they are designed well.