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Chrome for iOS

itunes.apple.com

31–40 of 94 posts

Re: Chrome for iOS

#31
post #12

This could be a nice "trojan horse" into the iOS ecosystem. Get Apple users hooked enough on Chrome, that they will want to switch to Android for the "real Chrome experience". I know a lot of people are not using iPhones because they can't live without the Gmail app for Android.

It's possible but I seriously doubt users would switch to Android because of a browser. Especially when they've already spent a lot of money on iOS apps and are familiar with the iOS ecosystem. I also doubt any mainstream user will understand that Chrome on iOS is slower than it could be because of Apple's rules.

Re: Chrome for iOS

#32
post #23

Can't imagine the amount of arm twisting that was involved in getting this into the App Store. Must've really come down to the ultimate "No Google for you" argument.

Eh, I doubt Apple would reject it. IIRC Mozilla already did something similar.

Re: Chrome for iOS

#33
post #7
post #5

Chrome for iOS doesn't use V8 or the Chromium fork of WebKit, just UIWebView. [0] Because it's using WebViews, it's about 3x slower than the OS's Safari browser [1], because WebViews in sandboxed apps don't get the "Nitro" JavaScript JIT from iOS 5 onwards (presumably for mark-executable security reasons). Unless the tab-sharing feature is crucial to more people than I thought, I don't think this app is going to be a…

Well that's a bummer. The UI in the Chrome app is really slick!

At first glance, the UI feels pretty good. Here's some screenshots of Google Chrome on iOS: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjAhkquN

Re: Chrome for iOS

#34
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well that's a bummer. The UI in the Chrome app is really slick!

Don't worry too much about that, it's only slower for javascript execution. The other features, including Chrome sync, unlimited tabs, "Request desktop site", more than make up for it. The real stumbling block, IMO, is that without jailbreaking, links from other apps will always open in Safari.

That is something I really hope Apple fixes.

They have a generic mechanism to send files to other apps, but not for URLs, making it painful to pass a URL to Twitter or an instant messaging app.

Re: Chrome for iOS

#35
post #23

Can't imagine the amount of arm twisting that was involved in getting this into the App Store. Must've really come down to the ultimate "No Google for you" argument.

Eh, I doubt Apple would reject it. IIRC Mozilla already did something similar.

Same thing as Y! Axis as well.

Re: Chrome for iOS

#36
post #6

I'm excited to use this, but wow, the sign in flow for people using 2-factor authentication is awful.

Google's own apps should really support 2-factor auth, and they should improve the flow for app-specific passwords.

The flow for getting an app-specifc password is awful. It takes a large number of clicks (I think 7, but I lost count), and several of the pages are confusing. Not only that, but you have to enter your password and a name of the app. Ideally, it would be a reduced number of clicks (like 2–3), entering your password, and that's it. Adding a name for the app should be optional. My apps all have names like “alsjdlajshd” or “9”, because I'm impatient, and the likelihood that I'll ever need to invalidate one is low enough that I would be okay with just invalidating them all.

Re: Chrome for iOS

#38
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't worry too much about that, it's only slower for javascript execution. The other features, including Chrome sync, unlimited tabs, "Request desktop site", more than make up for it. The real stumbling block, IMO, is that without jailbreaking, links from other apps will always open in Safari.

That is something I really hope Apple fixes. They have a generic mechanism to send files to other apps, but not for URLs, making it painful to pass a URL to Twitter or an instant messaging app.

Are you not thinking of custom URL schemes, which you can switch to another app and optionally pass small bits of data to it?

Re: Chrome for iOS

#40
Somewhy I could not find it with the search in the app store on iPad itself.

Just installed it. Sweet. Finally I've got the same browsing experience on my iPad as on a desktop.

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