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Gears API Blog: Hello HTML5

27 points by mcav 17y ago

hendzen 17y ago
Hopefully Google keeps Gears alive long enough for HTML5 to really take root. Though relying on any kind of plugin is undesirable, Gears supplied a functionality that was useful and unattainable any other way. I'm glad to see that the innovations spurred by Gears will soon be ubiquitous without the need of the plugin itself.
marcusbooster 17y ago
My kingdom for gCal to be available offline in Chrome on Ubuntu-64! Hopefully this will be a step towards that.
daleharvey 17y ago
this is awesome news, the introduction of gears always worried my as it looked to be fighting web standards as opposed to leveraging them, nice to be proved wrong. I wonder why gears wasnt initially a plugin that let you use html5 apis in browsers that didnt have support?
- tl 17y ago
  Were those apis set in stone in 2007 when Gears first came out?
  - daleharvey 17y ago
    they arent ever set in stone, browsers can quite happily ignore web standards from time to time. Would have made upgrading from gears just happen by magic though.
- blasdel 17y ago
  You've got it backwards, Gears was the zeroth version of the LocalStorage, Web Workers, and Geolocation APIs: HTML5 is based on it It was always an experiment, a way to test this stuff out without putting it in Webkit or Gecko where people could depend on it. All of the APIs changed form when they were standardized, with some being abandoned (LocalServer and Desktop).
jdietrich 17y ago
More evidence for Google not being evil. I certainly can't imagine any other company of Google's size cheerfully abandoning a technology that has been supplanted by open standards. Google just seems to reflexively prefer open standards, whether it suits their corporate interest or not.
- m0th87 17y ago
  I don't disagree with the premise. But the phase-out of Gears is because it wasn't a revenue stream, but rather a means of enabling new scenarios on the web that weren't otherwise possible. Its standardization is a win for everyone, including Google.
- axod 17y ago
  Having an open good web is absolutely in Googles financial best interests. If people spend more time online, Google makes more money. So I think it's not a case of not being evil as such, it's just that their interests are absolutely aligned with users - to build a free open web with as much accessibility as possible.
hannibalhorn 17y ago
this has been their stated direction for a while now, just wish they'd hurry up and release the updated version of gmail that doesn't require gears..

27 points by mcav 17y ago

Hopefully Google keeps Gears alive long enough for HTML5 to really take root. Though relying on any kind of plugin is undesirable, Gears supplied a functionality that was useful and unattainable any other way. I'm glad to see that the innovations spurred by Gears will soon be ubiquitous without the need of the plugin itself.

marcusbooster 17y ago

My kingdom for gCal to be available offline in Chrome on Ubuntu-64! Hopefully this will be a step towards that.

daleharvey 17y ago

this is awesome news, the introduction of gears always worried my as it looked to be fighting web standards as opposed to leveraging them, nice to be proved wrong. I wonder why gears wasnt initially a plugin that let you use html5 apis in browsers that didnt have support?

tl 17y ago
Were those apis set in stone in 2007 when Gears first came out?
- daleharvey 17y ago
  they arent ever set in stone, browsers can quite happily ignore web standards from time to time. Would have made upgrading from gears just happen by magic though.
blasdel 17y ago
You've got it backwards, Gears was the zeroth version of the LocalStorage, Web Workers, and Geolocation APIs: HTML5 is based on it It was always an experiment, a way to test this stuff out without putting it in Webkit or Gecko where people could depend on it. All of the APIs changed form when they were standardized, with some being abandoned (LocalServer and Desktop).

jdietrich 17y ago

More evidence for Google not being evil. I certainly can't imagine any other company of Google's size cheerfully abandoning a technology that has been supplanted by open standards. Google just seems to reflexively prefer open standards, whether it suits their corporate interest or not.

m0th87 17y ago
I don't disagree with the premise. But the phase-out of Gears is because it wasn't a revenue stream, but rather a means of enabling new scenarios on the web that weren't otherwise possible. Its standardization is a win for everyone, including Google.
axod 17y ago
Having an open good web is absolutely in Googles financial best interests. If people spend more time online, Google makes more money. So I think it's not a case of not being evil as such, it's just that their interests are absolutely aligned with users - to build a free open web with as much accessibility as possible.

hannibalhorn 17y ago

this has been their stated direction for a while now, just wish they'd hurry up and release the updated version of gmail that doesn't require gears..