Google Gear: Web Applications Going Offline
The offline web applications like Zimbra narrow the gap between the web and desktop applications in many aspects like connectivity, performance, reliability, etc. The newly released Google Gear is an even bigger hit in that it sets a platform to help bring any web application "offline". This will change the way people perceive "web application". You do NOT need to be always connected to a network in order to use a web application any more.
| (From TechCrunch.com) Google Gears Lets Developers Take Apps Offline: Tomorrow, Google will be hosting a developer day for 5,000 developers worldwide… |
Followed offline app demo above, I tried the offline Google Reader. It is very cool. Also tried simulating an unexpected network connection drop. When browsing the feeds in Google Reader in "online" mode, the network was suddenly disconnected. It tried to read the content but timed out. Then it popped up a window reporting the connection drop and asked if I would like to switch to "offline" mode. Answer "yes" and I was able to continue reading the feeds offline! After I get back online, the local data (items marked as read) is synchronized back to the server. I was never a big fan of Google Reader due to its lack of useful features. But this offline mode really draws my attention and interest to try using it more.
What’s next? If this offline technology is used in developing mobile applications and it supports automatic smart downloading and synchronizing, it could greatly improve the performance of the sophisticated applications running on mobile devices with limited bandwidth.
An interesting comparison is with the Microsoft Smart Clients offline mode emerged in 2004 with the similar idea.
