Windows Phone Thoughts: Google Gears for Mobile Gives Offline Access to Windows Mobile Users... Maybe

"Google's offline-enabling project Gears released a version for Windows Mobile 5 and 6 devices last night, and mobile web apps like online document editor Zoho Writer and money manager Buxfer have already thrown their hats into the not-always-mobile ring. It looks like documents are read-only in Zoho at this point, but, like its desktop brother, Zoho Writer Mobile will likely upgrade to full online/offline sync soon. Similarly, Buxfer lets you check account balances and see transactions, but not make any account changes. It's a nice start, however, and more mobile apps, and functionality, are likely to follow. Visit gears.google.com from your Windows Mobile 5 or 6 device to install Gears."



This seemed like an incredibly cool software package for us Windows Mobile users and I was hoping I would be able to post this article with a ton of screenshots from a few offline web applications, but unfortunately I have not been able to install the recent release of Google Gears on my Samsung Blackjack. Since this story broke, whenever I have tried to browse the Google Gears site on my handset, I am presented with this "403 Forbidden" page. Though I cannot seem to find any confirmation of my theory, I think this might only be available for Windows Mobile Professional handsets. If this is the case, I for one would be a little annoyed with Google for leaving the rest of us in the dust. Has anyone else had any luck getting Google Gears up and running on their devices?

NOTE: We received confirmation that Google Gears is in fact allowing Windows Mobile Standard users to download and use the application... Except for me. I have no idea what I did to upset the Google gods, but every site I browse to loads perfectly except for the Google Gears Page.