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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."
There are some sample applications available here to help you get started using Google Gears. I found it pretty non-intuitive at the beginning but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it slowly.
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Google Gears works on the following browsers:
Additionally, the team is working on supporting Safari on Mac OS X in a future release.
Google is slowly reinventing the computer... to be a lot like what it was 20 years ago, except through a web browser. Just think, in the 1970s we all used ultra-thin clients called Teletype terminals to connect to mainframes. Then came the PC revolution, and soon we all had slower machines of our own. Then all those machines got as fast as mainframes, and we got the Internet, and started connecting to each other. Now we're going back to ultra-thin-clients connecting not to mainframes but to Google's giant server farm where they store all our personal data and promise not to abuse it. Nothing ever really changes, does it?
Anti-Globalism
Suppose that I, for example, run a small service-oriented business, with technicians and service trucks and customer appointments, in addition to the normal gamut of meetings and other internals. Suppose that some of these technicians are located in different towns.
Suppose that, because of geographic disparity, it becomes a pain in the ass to manage a central paper-based schedule and keep everyone on the same page. And suppose I find that the solution to this problem is to implement some sort of network-aware calender. And, that I want to be able to access and modify this calender by a variety of means, from standalone PalmOS devices to Windows boxen to WinCE phones, because the different techs, salespeople, and managers all have their own levels of technical ability and devices of choice.
And now, just suppose that something like Google Calender fits this bill and is put in service. Everyone knows where everyone else is, what they're doing later today (or next week). Scheduling a job can happen easily, and conflicts can be seen and avoided immediately. Life is good, and the paper schedule is forgotten (good riddance).
With me so far?
Good.
Now, suppose that the Intar-web is down, and Google Calender is unreachable.
Trucks stop rolling. Customers get angry about missed appointments. Jobs don't get done. And, the kicker: Nobody, except perhaps the stubborn old geek with an offline Palm Pilot, has any idea what anyone (including themselves!) is supposed to be doing. The company basically takes a vacation until connectivity is restored, which (in small business) means waiting as long as it takes for Time Warner or SBC to correct the problem.
Having offline web application support, if implemented well, can fix this problem. Even if new jobs can't be scheduled electronically, at least work on existing stuff can continue, as all that it takes is one person with Firefox on a desktop machine to pass out orders.
The worst-case, then, goes from having no data at all and a complete cessation of work, to at least having old data. A notepad and cell phones can then fill in the blanks for new jobs (just like it used to), which can be entered into the calender system once the Internet connection comes back.
Which is quite likely good enough.
Kid-proof tablet..
I was referring to the /. article. We don't RTFA here.
A UI is only as hideous as the UI designer has made it. I personally make amazing and intuitive UI using javascript, html and css. You'll never see them on the web though. You may see one in a Kiosk at a museum or on the back of an airplane in first class sometime though. They run locally via a browser pulling data from a central server but pulling UI assets and logic from a client side cache.
You can do some amazing things with today's Javascript libraries, DOM scripting, CSS manipulation and a SQL store. Look at Apple's Dashboard widgets, Konfabulator widgets, etc. for examples of what can be done (and yes when you turn an amateur developer base loose with easy to use tools, they'll come up with some pretty ugly and pointless things too).
BTW Javascript is only as memory sucking as the implementation, ie the browser in most cases. A good javascript engine will not leak memory like a sieve... and a good javascript library will minimize memory leaks even in a poor implementation.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
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.