The Frustratingly Unfulfilled Promise of Google Gears
blogs.pcworld.com
blogs.pcworld.com
I have watched in amazement as Microsoft, Adobe, Mozilla, and Google has raced to deliver to deliver web apps offline. The idea just doesn't seem appealing to me, and I would think that the vast majority of users also find it unappealing.
The primary strength of web applications is the fact that they are online, accessible from anywhere, shareable, and able to tap into the resources of the web. Take that away and what do you have? A watered down version of Microsoft Office, etc.
"I think one of the reasons offline browser applications are failing to take off is that people don't realise that we tolerate browser-based limitations because of the benefits of being connected to the Internet. Once offline, the browser is the last place we want to be."
To be fair to the developers: it is a very difficult implementation burden to keep up with the complexity and fast pace of change that is the web, with its numerous stakeholders.
If you are distributing a medium complexity application then you get several choices including.
- Web app. Online only but cross platform and low pain to 'install'.
- Binary. Hard work to make multi platform and who the heck trusts a binary from Bob's Software Shack (no spy ware guaranteed!)
- Offline capable web app. Low barrier to adoption (small download from a known and reputable brand) plus you get cross platform capability for free.
So assuming that your product really needs to go off line to magnify it's utility (e.g. a mail client or a to do list) and you can work out a slick way to sync data from multiple clients to the server it seems like a good idea to me.
It may indeed not be that appealing, but there are real world use cases where people want to do things like read their email or edit their documents when an internet connection is not available. Web application providers are struggling with how to provide tools that allow users to do that.
One possible solution is to provide a web app for people who don't care about offline and a full-blown desktop app for people who need offline, but then you're building the same app twice, and the two interfaces are also likely to be confusingly different. Offline web apps have a lot of problems, but they're an attempt to find a compromise solution.
From the Gears Developer FAQ: Q: How do I deploy an application that uses Google Gears? A: You should not do so at all.
http://code.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=69221...
"As for Web developers other than Google, I'm not sure whether they're struggling with Gears, or whether there's simply less interest in offline apps than I hoped and guessed there would be."
Go ask a few and give your opinion. A little research on what really is going on might support the claim of a frustratingly unfulfilled promise. I happen the think Gears was unveiled a bit early--getting uptake is easier when you've demonstrated the toolkit's potential first. But, this just seemed to fall short as an article for me.
How utterly clueless. Gears is a neat browser feature, but it is far from being the most innovative product of 2007 (iPhone, Kindle and SimpleDB are three more likely candidates that immediately come to mind).