Resembling in some ways intent attributes in the Android framework, the Intent tag works by signaling to a browser the intent to handle a number of URIs. The tag is meant for spidering.

A user chooses a favored service – say, a ”red-eye remover” for photo editing. The service loads; Intent data gets passed. The system takes care of service resources.

While somewhat reserved in promoting the power of the intent tag, Kinlan still readily suggests that the Google project could ”fundamentally change and improve the way we build applications on the Web today…”

Behind the effort has been a determined push to keep the API very simple. Kinlan describes the effort in a recent blog entitled ”Web Intents: A Fresh Look” and points you to a prototype API on Github. Further details are on http://webintents.org/share.

It is the next version of the Android platform, designed for devices with larger screen sizes, such as tablets.  Honeycomb is said to provide a “truly virtual and holographic user interface.”

If you take a look at this video, 3:00 minutes in, you will see WebKit on Android. It looks similar to the iPhone implementation, with the touch screen interface and all. There is also hardware zooming on that particular phone (Android isn’t about one phone, it is an open mobile platform).

More on devphone.

There was a day when Web development was in a sad state of affairs. The majority of developers laughed at JavaScript, and were focusing on a killer new server-side web framework, or a new ORM library. The consensus was that that browser was dumb. The modern TN3270 if you will.

A few renegades were actually building fantastic dhtml experiences. We could look up to Erik and Arv, and the many others who pushed the boundaries.

We were giving some talks on “Building killer web sites with dhtml” and we enjoyed surprisingly people with what was available, but the majority still didn’t care. Then Ajax came along and the revolution started. Finally, we could get back to thinking about the user interface and general usability of Web based applications. We could care about the user again!

This is from a post on the new devphone.com, a new community site that hopes to do the same for Ajax, for mobile development. We believe that it is the time of a mobile development renaissance. The iPhone has pushed the boundaries, and Android is joining in the fun. People are already using their mobile devices to do so much, but it is time for really great interfaces to come to life as we have platforms that enable them.

To kick off the community we got to sit down with Joe Hewitt to discuss the iPhone Facebook app, how he develops on the platform, the iPhone in general, and what he would love to see from Apple. We also got to talk about the upcoming Android release and what he is looking to see out of that mobile platform.

Watch and listen to the interview below:

If you are interested in mobile development, check out devphone, subscribe to our feed, and let us know what you would like to see. It is very early days, so who knows which direction it will go.