PubCrawler updated to Google Maps API V3

Good old PubCrawler. I have somewhat neglected my duties in maintaining this web app. However, I recently completed the migration to Google Maps API V3 for it. Advantages of this include:

• Automatic display of controls based on device. For example zoom buttons are displayed on Android devices but not on the iPhone (because it has multitouch built in). This means that I have done away with the buttons below the map.
• Built in map type buttons (Map, Hybrid, Satellite, Terrain) so I got rid of the button to do this at the top
• Speed: it uses less data and therefore loads maps faster. They built it with mobile devices in mind.

There’s more but Google themselves can explain it better than I can. PubCrawler running on Maps API V2 (or PubCrawler Classic as it might become known) is still available here. I actually started this process of migration to V3 not long after it was announced. However, at first the full feature set wasn’t there so I parked it for a while. I’m not sure when the API became complete enough for PubCrawler’s needs but everything is there now.

Revisiting PubCrawler after such a long break means that the iPhone-esque look and feel is starting to look a little dated to me. At some point its going to need revising to something more unique and suited to the application’s purpose.

Is Google Ditching Gears?

Google Gears has been conspicuous by its absence in two places recently. The Droid no longer has Google Gears geolocation built into its browser. Instead it uses HTML5. In the recent Chrome OS announcement it was also HTML5 all the way. I think perhaps Google was using Gears as a stop gap until HTML5 came on stream. Now its supported by the Firefox 3.5, iPhone 3.x, Palm Pre and Android 2.0 there’s not much reason to keep Gears going. This is probably a Good Thing as now developers can being to concentrate on using one geolocation implementation.
Update 1st Dec: Looks like I’m not the only one who has noticed this: Gizmodo: Is Google Gears Dead?