14 DAY TRIAL // Google is always looking for new challenges, and this can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. It means that the company is always launching new projects and entering new markets, but it also means that it can drop a project just as fast as it picked it up if it gets bored with it. This seems to be happening with Google Gears, a utility and technology designed to enhance websites with features normally found in native applications which may be living its final days at the company.
Google Chrome has really shaped up recently and the company is getting close to launching a beta version for Mac. Unfortunately, Mac users will have to do without the Gears technology which is built into the browser on the other operating systems it supports. Google says this wasn't a design decision but a technological one, Gears doesn't work in the latest version of Apple's operating system, Snow Leopard, and it's impractical to adapt the technology to the changes. Instead, Google is betting big on HTML 5, the proposed standard which should be nearing completion after years of development.
"We are excited that much of the technology in Gears, including offline support and geolocation APIs, are being incorporated into the HTML5 spec as an open standard supported across browsers, and see that as the logical next step for developers looking to include these features in their websites," Google told the LA Times in an email.
Google launched Gears to implement several features which at the time weren't available through any other means. It started off with offline support which makes it practical to use apps like Gmail and Docs even without an Internet connection. At a later time, a Geolocation API was also implemented to aid location-based services. Now, though, these features will be a part of HTML 5 and most browsers are starting to support them natively. Google is not dropping support for Gears altogether, but it’s safe to assume that the focus is now on the HTML standard.
"We're continuing to support Gears so that nothing breaks for sites that use it. But we expect developers to use HTML5 for these features moving forward as it's a standards-based approach that will be available across all browsers," Google added to clarify that dropping Gears for the Chrome Mac build doesn't mean that the project is dead.