Web app to native iOS app frameworks such as Phonegap use the UIWebView to display html/javascript content within iOS apps.
There is also a Javascript interpreter on iOS contained within WebKit that can be used directly known as JavascriptCore (aka Nitro and Nitro Extreme). Using JavascriptCore it is possible to directly render graphics using OpenGL and create audio using OpenAL.
Using this approach it is possible to create a browser capable of running high performance apps using HTML/Javascript.
You can read about how PhobosLab was able to successfully create, and have JavascriptCore games approved for the iOS app store here.
Unfortunately PhobosLab did not show how they were able to achieve this publicly, but Johannes Fahrenkrug has created an example Xcode project demonstrating how to get started using the JavascriptCore that can be found on Github here.
Not the most complex app, but you can easily see exactly how Johannes was able to use the JavascriptCore rather than the slower UIWebView.
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