For those of you who have never used ionic (http://ionicframework.com/) before I definitely recommend checking it out. It's an incredible framework for building mobile applications on top of Cordova. I've been using it for three mobile applications now it has decreased my dev time by probably 50%. The annoyances with testing, submitting to the app store, provisioning profiles, etc. are still there, but the actual development process is really enjoyable.
Yeah that's a fair point. The real downside of using Cordova in my experience is performance, but I do believe that is, and will continue to change. Mobile devices are getting faster and if you compare a typical Cordova app on a two year old phone vs. a new phone it's a world of difference.
