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Google Gears is Launched
Mister Inbetween writes "Google is rolling out a technology designed to overcome the major drawback faced by all web-based applications: the fact that they don't work without an internet connection. Google Gears is an open source technology for creating offline web applications that is being launched today at Google's annual Developer Day gatherings around the world."
Of course, whether this should all be built into web browsers, which were originally intended to store static pages, is an issue you could debate. Sometimes I think it might make more sense to make a browser-like framework for programs, but built from the ground up for applications instead of static pages. But then, I guess that more and more, that's what browsers are becoming.
.NET managed to do so far).
You may want to check Adobe Apollo, a multi-platform runtime that allows you to create desktop apps based on: HTML/CSS/JS and Flash.
It has ability to store/read data locally and basically act as a normal desktop app, but it's inherently multiplatform, because it uses platform neutral technologies (even more so than Java and
Honestly I'm not sure how smart it would be to invest in Google Gears. You may want to deploy a Yahoo app.. and then what? Google's also known for their ton of search-unrelated projects which they abandon the next day.
For Adobe, Flash and Apollo is a deal maker/breaker: if they don't get it right, Microsoft and WPF/.NET/XPF/Expression will simply throw them out of business.
For Google, Gears is just something they did for fun in their 20%.
The iPhone doesn't support desktop style apps. This could help bridge the gap if google / Apple were to support something like gears on the iPhone's browser.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
From the sound of it, Google expects the developer to handle database synchronization issues. And in some cases, you actually have to duplicate your business logic in the browser in Javascript to make the app function offline at all. Ouch!
http://code.google.com/apis/gears/architecture.ht
I'm not touching this tech with a 10 foot pole. Internet access is getting more an more ubiquitous. In the not too distant future the entire concept of being "offline" will be all but forgotten. I'm much more focused on making web apps not suck when they are ONLINE. Who has time to worry about what happens when they are offline?
-matthew
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
because last time, Microsoft was Google, and IBM was Microsoft. But now Google is Microsoft and Microsoft is IBM. If you haven't read any of Clayton Christensen's books, now would be a good time to read The Innovator's Solution by Christensen and Raynor. Ever since the telephone, small upstart companies have been offering products and services that were shunned by the market leader's best customers, and hence the market leader, usually because the product underperformed the expectations of the market leader's best customers. But the market entrant was able to make enough profit and gradually got better and better, and then started pulling customers out of the market leader's business network.
RCA didn't use transistors in small radios until it was too late. Western Union didn't use the telephone until it was too late. Microsoft didn't work with the FOSS community, and now it is too late. Google is great at broadcasting software. Microsoft is still mostly delivering software the old, slow way. This news is another digital tipping point. The OS is becoming less crucial. GNU Linux is getting its foot in the door with Dell. Google and 1000 other new start ups are using the power of FOSS to do creative stuff. Microsoft seems to be focused on older business models (DRM'd content) while Google continues to broadcast everything from its own software (Google algorithms on Linux) to fun, new format for video (YouTube shorts). I think that we are going to see some major changes in the way that desktop software is funded, distributed, and delivered. Once the Microsoft monopoly on the desktop is cracked, think of the changes we will see.