We are still in the early stages of application development on mobile devices. Until very recently all mobile applications were designed to work alongside the PC. Some mobile applications, like Palm’s classic PDA applications, were specifically created with the PC in mind, and today’s most popular media solutions continue to rely on the PC for content delivery and storage. Other applications are essentially desktop applications ported to a phone, like many of the wireless email solutions. We are just beginning to see applications that are completely designed and optimized for the wireless mobile user.

Phones are far more personal than PCs; they are almost always with the user, even if they’re not being engaged by the user. With phones, an event-driven model is more appropriate, and mobile applications can best leverage web and device services in useful mashups. Applications that notify users of upcoming calendar events or incoming emails are common, but webOS applications can notify users of traffic on the route to their next appointment, or monitors social network feeds. A movie guide allows users to find movies within the immediate vicinity, purchase tickets, get directions, and set a reminder for the movie time.

Applications designed for the mobile Web are different than applications built before now, and they require a different type of platform. This book explores how Palm webOS is providing that type of platform and shows you how to build those next generation applications and with them, the new Web—the mobile Web.