We highly recommend Google Apps to all of our hosting clients and one of the few things that made Gmail (or any webmail for that matter) not as attractive is it required an internet connection in order to work (IE: view old emails), since it’s a webmail system. That is not the case anymore! Utilizing the new "Google Gears" technology, now you can access your Google Apps Email even when not connected to the internet!
To enable this feature, simply log into your Google Apps email account and click "Settings" in the top right corner of the screen and then go to "Labs."
There you will see a link to enable "Offline" access (As well as several other nice goodies). Turn that on and then click the "Offline" link in your top right menu and your most recent email will be synced with your computer and accessible even if you are not connected to the internet.
This is a great feature if you have a laptop and are always bouncing around from one wifi hotspot to the next. Obviously in offline mode, you will not receive new emails until you are back on the internet and any emails you compose and send will actually go to an "Out" box to wait until the next time you are online to get sent. But you do have access to the most recent emails that you have dealt with. And that’s pretty cool.