Today Google confirmed that it is shifting its focus away from Gears, and toward HTML5, encouraging developers to do as much - in essence, whilst they’re looking forward to a time when users can enjoy an offline-supported Web experience courtesy of HTML5, they’re “letting the sun set on its Gears project.”
Part of the shift in focus pertains to Google Chrome - although Google Chrome for PC includes Gears, the Mac version (TBR any day now :-) ) won’t support the plugin; apparently due to technical issues that made using Gears in Chrome for Mac problematic, in part since Gears is not yet compatible with the Snow Leopard operating system.
What does this really mean? In the near term, Google Gears will continue to work for existing PC users, but Mac users running Snow Leopard may not get offline support for Web applications until HTML5 makes it debut. (Note: Apple software developer David Hyatt is also an editor on the HTML5 specification, so there is an expectation that HTML5 could be made available to Mac browsers before the new language is even finalized). Further out, Google is clearly positioning Chrome + HTML5 as the core of their browser/runtime strategy. Expect to see Chrome expand its reach further beyond Web 2.0, to compete more aggressively with AIR and Silverlight.
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