Google fans the moment you've been dreaming about appears to drawing near -- according to reports, offline access for Google Calendar and Gmail should arrive in about six weeks.
That's the word from Andrew Fogg who claims to have seen a working demo at the Google offices. Some users have already reported seeing hints that Google Calendar will eventually have offline access through Gears -- for a while Google Calendar would display a prompt that read "to view and edit the next 3 months of your Google Calendar when you're not connected to the Internet, click OK." Of course the feature itself wasn't available, but clearly something is in the works
Of course Google has never denied that it's working on an offline version of Gmail, but the company has thus far never given anything like a timeframe. Fogg's Twitter post has since been removed, but if the timeframe is even close, it's going to put Gmail head and shoulders above its webmail competitors.
According to Fogg's now deleted tweets, Google is also adding SyncML support for Gmail's address book. SyncML is a data synchronization standard that's generally used to synchronize contact and calendar information between portable devices and your PC. In this context Google is probably looking for some kind of mobile contact syncing app for the iPhone, Blackberry and its own Android platform.
Although it's just a rumor at the moment, if, or more optimistically, when Gmail gains offline support, look for Yahoo and Microsoft to jump on the bandwagon as well.
If all three offer offline webmail access will there still be any use for desktop e-mail programs?
[via Google Operating System]
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