I really hope WebGL is adopted for the computation intensive apps, but yes you're right for most consumer needs basic static(-ish) HTML5 format would be sufficient.
Access to various hardware devices like the camera, speakers, sensors and the like are "basic" on mobile devices but for which there isn't any real way to access from HTML5 in a way that is useful or complete. It could be done, but then one runs into the performance/efficiency (in both development and end-user experience) issue again.
