So, what did Google just do with its introduction of “Gears?”
Setup its suite of office applications to go offline. Oh, and everyone else’s too.
Zojo? ConceptShare? Zimbra?
All will be able to go offline soon if their developers adopt Google’s Gears.
UPDATE: David Berlind at ZDNet has the best insight I’ve seen posted so far about Gears and has a podcast/interview with Linus Upson, director of engineering at Google
Right now I’m using my computer while not connected to the Internet. I’m typing in Windows Live Writer’s window and I’m surfing Google Reader while unconnected.
Some things that work better? Google Reader doesn’t hesitate or “stutter” every 20 posts like it does when it’s online. Some things that don’t work as well? It doesn’t download images so posts have grey boxes in them.
I just reconnected and it instantly shared all the items I had maked as shared.
Nice implementation and works simply and easily. I’ll definitely be using this on my next plane ride.
I wish it ALWAYS worked in offline mode, though. Why do I need to click a button to resubscribe? The Gears team told me this is a choice the developer will need to make.
Oh, while offline, if I reloaded my browser, or accidentally closed it, it goes back to my Reader automatically. That’s nice.
Look for more offline applications to come from Google soon. They don’t have any to announce yet, but said they are working on their Docs and Spreadsheets.
What really just happened? The Web got a little further away from Microsoft’s platforms and Google revealed a little more about its platform dreams.
What do you think? Are you looking forward to developing an app using Gears?
