14 DAY TRIAL // Opera Labs announced yesterday the availability of the Opera Mobile 9.5 technology preview that features support for Google Gears, the open source project that opens the gate for more powerful applications. As many of you might know, Gears can already be found on Firefox 1.5+, IE 6.0+, Internet Explorer Mobile 4.01+, Safari 3.1.1, and Android.
When used on mobile handsets, Gears is able to leverage the user experience by allowing applications to cache data more efficiently, reducing this way the bandwidth usage, while processes would run discreetly in the background. When used on desktops, Gears allows applications to work offline and then sync with the server as soon as the user goes online.
The installation of Google Gears is not a complicated process. All that users need to do is install the new Opera Mobile and then install Gears. By making these moves, all the Gears APIs will become available, and users will be able to benefit from the functionality they offer while surfing on Gears-enabled web sites.
According to the Opera Labs, “The idea is that as a developer using Gears your web site should contain a piece of code that detects whether Gears is installed on a visiting browser, before your web application tries to access Gears APIs. The code should first initialize Gears by including gears_init.js, then do a check to see if google.gears is defined, which it will be if Gears is installed. If it isn’t, your code should probably redirect the user to the Gears installation page, or serve them up a more basic version of your application, depending on what is most suitable for your situation. If Gears is installed, then it should just continue running the rest of the code.”
Users with Gears installed will be able to access a site offline through a special functionality option that enables them to store a site locally. “When the user then selects the option to store the site locally, they will be able to access the site and work with it normally while offline, even down to accessing the same URL.”
Those interested in trying out the new Opera Mobile 9.5 technology preview with Google Gears, can find them both on Softpedia.