The idea of offline web applications is getting an undue amount of attention. Which is bizarre when you look at how availability of connectivity is ever increasing. EVDO cards, city-wide wifis, iPhones, Blackberry’s. There are so many ways to get online these days that the excitement for offline is truly puzzling. Until you consider the one place that is still largely an island of missing connectivity: The plane!

But planes are not a very common hang-out spot for most people. The two major groups of people who are on a plane often enough to care and have an interest in web applications are traveling salesmen and techies who go to too many conferences.

I used to somewhat belong to latter group. And I too liked the idea of having access to my web applications at 30,000 feet. Then it actually happened. SAS offered connectivity on their transatlantic flights between Copenhagen and Chicago. Nirvana, eh? Hell no. Access to my web applications meant that the one time where I’d actually have serenity to read a book or listen to a podcast or just chill out got sucked into looking just like any other day at the office.

Ironically, SAS killed the internet access on their transatlantic flights this January because nobody was using it. (Well, except for me saying “look, I’m online at 30,000 feet!!” in a chat room). And I think that’s a good indicator for offline web applications. The idea is cool, but the reality is that it just doesn’t matter. You don’t need access to all your stuff all the time. We’re already overloaded with connectivity. Cherish the few remaining strongholds for offlineliness!

(Yes, yes, I’m sure there exists other niches and pockets of dark holes where if only we had access to the GlobalMegaCorpSocialY application, the world would be a better place. I’m certainly not going to deny that. Just that for most people, most of the time, it couldn’t matter less.)

UPDATE: The Mile High Club: 37signals, fuck yeahs, and productivity stock-art