So far we’ve looked at UI elements and web service requests, but very little of what we’ve done is anything you couldn’t do in a sufficiently capable web browser. What makes Mojo particularly powerful is its access to services that encapsulate both low-level hardware capabilities and higher-level data services that provide access to Palm webOS Synergy features, cloud services, and more. It is this access to the device and its services that lets developers build applications with the capabilities of a native application.

Most intriguing are the cloud-based services—emerging web services from many providers, including Palm—that provide limitless potential for added capability.

The Web as expressed through cloud service APIs is a platform in itself, and the webOS service architecture enables access to Palm cloud services. You can also access third-party cloud services or your own services through Ajax calls or other direct service interfaces, and build applications that integrate or mash up these services in unique ways.

In this chapter and the next, we’ll explore a number of the available Mojo services. This chapter introduces the service architecture and presents the calling conventions that all Mojo services share. We will extend the News application to launch the web browser and to allow users to share stories over email or text messaging.

In Chapter 9, we conclude our discussion of the service layer by delving into cloud services and lower-level system services like Location services.