Introducing Chrome for Android • Hacker News Board

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#111

Post by dochtman » Tue, Feb 07, 2012, 7:11 PM UTC

paulirish wrote: post #101

bad_user wrote: post #31

"This item cannot be installed in your device's country"

It's currently available in: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil Sundar, SVP of Chrome just said "We are working hard to bring this to more countries and should greatly expand within the next three months."

Why in the world is this restricted? I live in the Netherlands, and I really don't get what's so hard about releasing here. Sure, we're a small market, so not as important, but still... Software is global, man!

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#112

Post by nextparadigms » Tue, Feb 07, 2012, 7:14 PM UTC

jebblue wrote: post #53

oflannabhra wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, while I'm generally excited about this, I won't be able to use it anytime soon, unfortunately.

Same here, I bought into the Nexus One hype, great phone but without ICS we are left high and dry with an expensive paperweight with regards to something like Chrome on ICS.

Unfortunately, because of shortsightedness from both Google and HTC (HTC mostly), phones back then only had like 450 MB internal storage, and from that only 250 MB were for the OS itself.

This means an ICS install would be severely limited by the hardware (I think a full ICS install is significantly bigger). Modders might be able to put ICS on it by cutting apps and features, or doing other kinds of hacks to extend the internal storage, but for Google that just wasn't worth it.

I would really blame HTC for this. Pretty much all of their phones throughout 2010 were like that. It was my main frustration with HTC at the time, another one being the weak Adreno 200 GPU.

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#113

Post by bvdbijl » Tue, Feb 07, 2012, 7:14 PM UTC

dochtman wrote: post #23

Too bad it's only available in "select countries", which certainly don't include the Netherlands... Probably just the US and Canada? Kind of old-fashioned.

You can use https://market.android.com/details?id=com.notenking.mf if you're rooted, dan werkt het wel bij mij namelijk

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#114

Post by bzbarsky » Tue, Feb 07, 2012, 7:16 PM UTC

wslh wrote: post #15

voidfiles wrote: post #7

Wow, if they include extensions. This could be huge.

Yes, having extensions in a mobile browser is the next step to quick personalization beyond native applications. I bet that web augmentation on mobiles can be really huge.

You may want to try out Firefox Mobile!

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#115

Post by gruuk » Tue, Feb 07, 2012, 7:20 PM UTC

trotsky wrote: post #39

Chrome is now available in Beta from Android Market, in select countries and languages for phones and tablets with Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. What tablets have official ICS on them? Is ICS even fully tabletized? I thought they had said they were putting that off until Jelly Bean.

Who needs an "official" ICS? I've installed a beta ICS ROM (teamDRH) on my Viewsonic gTablet and it is as tabletized as honeycomb, though it looks better (this build has issues, but developer support is pretty impressive). The best Viewsonic could do as an update was a Froyo-based bugfix release.

Besides, people who have installed custom ROMs on their phone/tablet are likely less worried about using alpha/beta software, so I wouldn't be surprised if most of the early beta testers will be from this group.

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#116

Post by oflannabhra » Tue, Feb 07, 2012, 7:21 PM UTC

vertr wrote: post #44

oflannabhra wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, while I'm generally excited about this, I won't be able to use it anytime soon, unfortunately.

Root and install a 4.0 rom!

There is only an alpha 1 version of 4.0 (CM9, in fact) out for my phone, and it still has severe bugs.

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#117

Post by revorad » Tue, Feb 07, 2012, 7:21 PM UTC

eco wrote: post #90

revorad wrote: post #55

Can anyone please confirm if this includes access to the Chrome Web Store? That could be huge for web apps.

If you visit the web store it says it isn't supported by this operating system.

Oh no! I hope they will open it up. Thanks anyway; I asked because I don't have an Android device but I do make web apps.

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#118

Post by schraeds » Tue, Feb 07, 2012, 7:23 PM UTC

cryptoz wrote: post #96

dangrossman wrote: post #20

With Android 4.0 at 1% market share, it'll be a long time before most people can even try this. http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve...

This is common Google strategy. They are trying to build the future and pre-ICS devices are not the future. So they get shafted. Google may make unhappy customers this way, but they can move a lot faster than companies like Microsoft, who support everything back two decades or so sometimes.

Apple seems to be able to innovate iOS while providing robust and timely updates for older devices.

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#119

Post by schraeds » Tue, Feb 07, 2012, 7:24 PM UTC

nextparadigms wrote: post #112

jebblue wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here, I bought into the Nexus One hype, great phone but without ICS we are left high and dry with an expensive paperweight with regards to something like Chrome on ICS.

Unfortunately, because of shortsightedness from both Google and HTC (HTC mostly), phones back then only had like 450 MB internal storage, and from that only 250 MB were for the OS itself. This means an ICS install would be severely limited by the hardware (I think a full ICS install is significantly bigger). Modders might be able to put ICS on it by cutting apps and features, or doing other kinds of hacks to extend t…

Is it HTC or Google's responsibility to provide future-proof reference designs and specs?

Re: Introducing Chrome for Android

#120

Post by shmerl » Tue, Feb 07, 2012, 7:29 PM UTC

wavephorm wrote: post #109

shmerl wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any factual statistics for that?

I've never seen any chart or graph where Firefox Mobile even shows up. Usually when something has http://gs.statcounter.com/#mobile_browser-ww-monthly-201101-... http://www.netmarketshare.com/mobile-market-share

It's still not nobody. And having Firefox playing a significant role will prevent situation which existed in the past where many sites were "IE only". We don't need "WebKit only" sites.