Slash LaneVice president of engineering Vic Gundotra called it a "technical concept" that Google has "never shown publicly before" during a live demo at the 2009 GSMA Mobile World Congress, which can be seen in the video from iPhone Buzz (below).
As the audience watched, the executive brought up Gmail in the mobile version of Safari and then switched his iPhone into Airplane Mode, which disables all forms of wireless transmissions. He then returned to Safari and was able to access and manipulate e-mails from within his Gmail account, making changes that would later synchronize once his iPhone's network access was re-established.
Facilitating this functionality are three emerging Web standards, he explained, namely the W3C Database specification and W3C App Cache specification, both of which fall under the umbrella of HTML5, and both of which are already supported by the latest version of the iPhone Software.
The first provides a local database for a web application to store its data, while the second allows that same application to also store its executable state in memory. They're aided by the W3C GeoLocation specification that enables the application to securely access location information while respecting privacy.
"You'll note that it's very, very fast because it's using that local database," Gundotra said. The same offline Gmail ability was shown on an HTC Magic running Google's own Android mobile operating system. Both versions included features new to mobile Gmail, such as a floating toolbar, multiple selection capability, and label support.
Google is reportedly striving to bring to mobile devices all of the features available in the desktop version of Gmail. In a report on the matter, CNET News.com notes that the move "is significant because it shows how Web-based applications can bypass the control that particular companies such as Apple or Microsoft have over a computing technology."
For example, Apple currently regulates which software applications make their way to the iPhone and iPod touch through the strict regulations of its App Store. But with these emerging HTML5 standards, many of those same applications could be written for the browser, where they'd be accessible to a broad range of devices, including those not manufactured by the Cupertino-based company.
Apple already offers iPhone web developers an unpublicized function call that allows Web apps to be saved to the home screen and then launched in full-screen mode. Although these apps still run within the Safari wrapper, they behave like native iPhone apps.
Andrew Orr
Wesley Hilliard
Malcolm Owen
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12 Comments
That's quite cool, but unfortunately web apps are extremely difficult to advertise, whereas the App Store in iTunes takes care of that for you.
Unless you're a massive company like Google, that is.
I like proof of concepts, but does anyone actually use the web-based Gmail over Mail or a 3rd-party mail app?
Google is reportedly striving to bring to mobile devices all of the features available in the desktop version of Gmail. In a report on the matter, CNET News.com notes that the move "is significant because it shows how Web-based applications can bypass the control that particular companies such as Apple or Microsoft have over a computing technology."
I may miss the obvious, but what is the point here? SMTP, POP and IMAP are standards (except for Gmail IMAP of course), and there is a standards compliant email client on the iPhone, it uses the very same Web Kit to render HTML, it stores messages and attachments for offline use, handles POP/IMAP/Exchange/MobileMe, if it will at some point support the handling of iCal calendar invitations properly... what else do I need? How is Apple controlling the computing technology by including a standards compliant email client ? and how much control is Google gaining over a computing technology by offering a free service that can barely be met by most commercial offers?
Seems like a lot of effort to offer something that is already there?
This is the second video I've seen of GSMA Mobile World Congress that seem to have used iMovie '09.
The next version of Safari for OS X will also allow you to save web sites as stand-alone applications as well. All of this is based off the proposed HTML5 standards, which Apple is pushing hard to implement and adopt for these same reasons. Unlike the promise of Java, these web-based applications will give us true cross-platform compatibility as long as those who build the web engines remain focused on standards. So far the WebKit and Gecko teams have strived towards building standard complaint browsers. Although I believe WebKit is probably the most dominant player as more platforms support it.
Building these standards compliant web applications will only help to erode away IE's dominance in the browser wars. Especially since IE's JavaScript performance is abysmal compared to others'. People will be able to download a WebKit of Gecko based browser to use the web applications and use it for general based browsing, replacing IE as their default browser.