RIP Google Gears

Back in December, we discussed Google’s decision to shift focus away from Gears , its platform that allows web apps to work offline — instead the company would utilize HTML5.

In the Gears API Blog this week, GoogleGoogle has reinforced that decision, making it clear that the company “will not be investing resources in active development of new features.” Instead, the focus will continue to be on bringing all of the Gears capabilities into HTML5 and other web standards.

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Gears Was the Past, HTML5 is the Future

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When the Gears project launched in 2007, one of its big features was the ability to allow users to use certain web applications (like GmailGmail ) offline. As time has progressed, however, implementing those features of Gears into a standard like HTML5 makes more sense, as it will ultimately work on more platforms and not require the operating system or browser specific workarounds that Gears currently employs.

Until it is feasible for developers to convert their Gears-enabled apps to something standards-based, Google will continue to support Gears, but that support will be constrained in scope.

Likewise, while Gears support will be added for FirefoxFirefox 3.6 and will continue to work with Internet ExplorerInternet Explorer , Gears for Mac OS X Snow Leopard in SafariSafari 4.0 is not going to happen. The necessary architectural changes that would be involved in supporting Gears in Safari would take too many resources which could better work with adding to the HTML5 spec.

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Good Sign for the Future

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Gears was a good first step in lots and lots of ways, but building those features into something standards-based has a lot more potential for Google. By and large, mobile browsers are adapting to support HTML5 and other web-standards faster than their desktop counterparts (in large part because the majority of the next-generation mobile web browsers use WebKit — including Google ChromeGoogle Chrome , Mobile Safari and the next version of BlackBerry web browser ). Because mobile is an area that can benefit from some of Gears’ functionality like local storage and offline capabilities even more than traditional computers, there is great potential in having some of those features available on platforms for the future.

If you are a developer of an application that uses Gears, now would be a good time to start exploring options for migrating or rewriting in HTML5.