Gears comes to Safari

Even though Google Chrome is still only available for Windows, its WebKit roots mean that Safari for Mac users might still get some extra perks. Gears, Google's web API that lets developers create applications that can run offline, is one of those perks. Previously, Gears was only available for Firefox on the Mac, and it certainly didn't feel like there was any priority in bringing Gears to Safari. Well, with Google's gung-ho dedication to all things WebKit, the Google Mac team has just released Gears for Safari.

Even better, for WebKit browsers on the Mac that are not Safari, Google has made it easy to implement Gears without having to use InputManager. Fluid, a site-specific browser (it basically makes it possible to treat a web app like a regular app), implements Gears this way.

Gears for Safari requires OS X 10.4.11 or 10.5.3 or higher. You can download it here. After you install Gears, check out Google Docs, Zoho or Remember The Milk offline. It's pretty awesome.

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Source: http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2008/09/gears-for-safari.html

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Even though Google Chrome is still only available for Windows, its WebKit roots mean that Safari for Mac users might still get some extra...

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Phillip Black

Thought that meant Gears is in the game for a sec, sad I know.

September 15 2008 at 10:15 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Matt

If this were trying to be confusing, it could hardly be more successful.

1. Gears for Safari is an Input Manager. Launch its installer and pick "Show Files" from the "Installer" menu in the menu bar. It obviously does nothing to make it "easy to implement Gears without having to use [an] Input Manager," because it does use an Input Manager.

2. It's hard to imagine what Fluid has to do with "WebKit browsers on the Mac that are not Safari," because Fluid is not a WebKit browser. It's a project from the Mozilla foundation and it uses Gecko, just like Firefox does. That's why it includes GreaseMonkey scriptin, a Mozilla-only capability. However Gears is implemented in Fluid has nothing to do with WebKit.

I can't even imagine where any of these ideas came from, because a simple look at the installer or the Fluid Web page shows what's going on.

September 15 2008 at 10:04 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to Matt's comment

Christina Warren

Fluid IS WebKit based -- Prism is Gecko. And the information about Fluid integrating Gears sans the traditional InputManager plugin bundle was via Google's blog post.

It may be a semantical difference re: InputManagers and how they are installed, but the benefit is that for developers, they don't have to include a separate bundle or require the user to install something different to get the functionality.

September 15 2008 at 10:06 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Matt

Apologies on Fluid; I'm reading a lot of things and misunderstood the relationship between GreaseMonkey and the rendering engine.

Gears for Safari still requires that an Input Manager is installed, though, even if the installation doesn't have to come from applications using Gears. I didn't get that from reading your original text.

September 15 2008 at 10:19 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

JGuest

What an awful post... I had to read to the very end of the post to even get an idea of what Gears is and why I would care that it's on Mac..... I suggest next time including a description of the product in the first paragraph.

September 15 2008 at 8:57 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Rob

Does Google Gears still support Firefox running on the Mac?

If you go to http://gears.google.com/ , the only browser listed is Safari. Firefox is not listed. Yet if you go to the Gears downloads for Windows or Linux, the Firefox browser is listed.

It will be a real pity if Google Gears no longer supports Firefox on the Mac.

September 15 2008 at 7:42 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

2 replies to Rob's comment

Nick

Gears does support Firefox...
"System requirements

* Mac OS X 10.4+
* Firefox 1.5+"

I think what that site does is reads what browser you are using and tells you what version of that browser you need. Those are the requirements I was given when I visited the site using Firefox, and when I used Safari, Firefox was not mentioned.

I'm more concerned with the article... GMail does not use Gears for offline access...yet. The only Google services that do are Docs, Calendar, and Reader.

September 15 2008 at 9:21 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Christina Warren

OK, that was totally my bad. I typed in Gmail, not realizing it hasn't been Gear-ified yet. Changed. Thank you. (I use Gmail and Google Apps via Mail.app and my BlackBerry so I forgot that it was still delayed).

September 15 2008 at 10:09 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Fernando

Not only safari, firefox on mac os too!

September 15 2008 at 6:57 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Fernando's comment

Christina Warren

Yup, it has been available for Firefox for quite some time -- but those of us who love WebKit can use Gears goodness now :-)

September 15 2008 at 7:05 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Level 5

Win for you.

http://www.tuaw.com/2008/08/28/google-gears-beta-for-safari/

We already knew this was coming ;)

September 15 2008 at 6:56 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply