Google Chrome already No. 1 among free iOS apps

So true. iOS users love trying new apps. That doesn't mean that those apps will actually gain a place on the home screen, or even be in use after a week by the majority of those users (that would be a good metric, but hard to check.)

I didn't even download Chrome for iOS, as I don't use any Google services besides Analytics, Adsense, and Places (I switched to DDG for search.) I don't see the upshot of using Chrome for iOS, because I have all my bookmarks in Safari and use Reading List and iCloud (with Instapaper and Evernote bookmarklets.)

The difference for me at least is that I have replaced the default Safari icon (in the dock bar) with Chrome.. something which I did not do with Opera. A friend of mine did too as I noticed today. So it definitely has better chances of sticking with at least the people I know.

(A little OT but right now the Chrome icon it looks ugly as hell. The black just doesn't seem to mix well with green and blue for some reason)

Opera is still the top mobile browser worldwide, still used by many on iOS when you want to save bandwidth.

Same here. For me the Omnibox is the biggest "lock-in" feature that keeps me on Chrome - not that I've had any reason to switch to something else, or anything. The 2nd biggest one would probably be the pre-rendering of webpages.

I don't see the need for keeping open more than 9 tabs in Safari. Pages I need later, I save in Reading List or Instapaper, which also have the advantage of being available on all my other devices.

> If you open more tabs it closes the earliest opened tab.

This is the case with Chrome for iOS too. At least on my original iPad, Chrome trash the first tab after I open the 4th tab (tested this with Reddit front page) where I can open up to the 9 tabs limit in Mobile Safari. I guess this is just the original iPad showing its age. Things seems to works better on iPhone 4, but my point is Chrome for iOS do trash tabs.

One thing that might help is that even when safari closes a tab, if you tap and hold the + button you will see a list of closed tabs and you can reopen any that were closed.

In iOS 6 you can open up to 24 tabs. I have 18 tabs open right now :)

Well, there's more to Chrome than its pure rendering and JS speed you know?

Predictive prefetching makes sure Chrome already has the page data before you finish typing. It can still beat Safari with tricks like this.

Chrome Sync syncs your profile (credentials, tabs, bookmarks, omnibox typing model, etc.) across all your devices.

The user interface for managing tabs is also very slick.

Auto-update is gimped by the app store approval process, but at least you know that the Chrome team takes security very seriously and will take the minimum possible time to patch security flaws.

Those are some things that I would want over Mobile Safari.

It is pretty good instead, you and all the other people making noise over here since yesterday should try it instead of making assumptions just for the love of bashing iOS.

There is much more to a browser than the rendering engine.

It often feels faster than Safari (no matter how much people complain it being THREE TIMES slower than Safari because it doesn’t have JIT), incognito mode is much better as I don’t have to go to Settings every tim, passwords sync, omnibox.

The only big issue is that you cannot set it as default.

Sparrow still doesn't have push notifications.

  Just like they denied Sparrow of push notifications at first but as more and more users started pestering them about it, they finally had to give in.

As far as I can Google, they didn't give in - and Sparrow ended up having to do it the same way everyone else does... with them in the middle?

The issue was Sparrow would have to handle notifications themselves, which would mean every user's Gmail account (user, plaintext password, and mails) streaming through their servers that likely aren't hardened against attackers nearly as well as Google's. Understandably, this is a risk they didn't want to take.

Sparrow tried to position it like that, but that was not the real story: it was not Apple "blocking" them, it was that they did not want to put in the effort to setup a real push service, and instead wanted to run all the time on the device (using battery) to maintain an open connection. Which, of course, not having every app doing that is exactly the problem that push notifications, as implemented by Apple, were designed to solve.

Apple will not do that out of the kindness of their own hearts. Users must complain about it and demand those features. Apple usually listens if the outrage is big enough that it turns into a PR problem for them.

You could always do this as a temporary workaround: http://blog.jonabrams.com/post/26099585134/open-in-chrome

Indeed. I downloaded it to try it out, and it is very interesting, but there's no way I'm going to even think about really using it until I have the option to set it as the default browser.

It's a security thing. Making a dynamic language (or even a static language) perform well means that you have to generate machine code at runtime, because much of the information required for optimization is only available then. But, to run those instructions, you need a writable and executable page of memory. The problem is that having writable and executable pages means that a poorly written loop or string operation can also write code to memory and execute it. So Apple made the decision to W^X (write xor execute) app memory that's not their Safari app so that poorly-programmed apps don't leak user data or compromise the OS. It also conveniently prevents apps from running code that Apple didn't approve, which is probably what they really care about.

Anyway, Apple's business model seems to preclude neat software. Use Android or a laptop if you want a good Chrome experience.

I don't see it being any better than FireFox.

>Chrome is the best browser out there on laptops.

Only if you have as much memory as a desktop. Chrome is painful to use on anything with limited memory, even with very limited plugin use. (Roughly 20 megs per extension and 50 megs per tab).

I've had much better luck with Safari, even the Windows version. No lastpass for Safari Windows though :(

I don't think this is much of a stamp of approval as it is curiosity. I wouldn't read into this as signing-off from Safari but just to see what Chrome offers.

It's still using Apple's UIWebView unfortunately. https://developers.google.com/chrome/mobile/docs/faq

Chrome is using the UIWebView control (same as Safari, sans NitroJS), so I don't know if that's even possible.

Have you tried Sparrow? Phenomenal email app for iPhone and iPad soon as well.

> Why does Apple allow competing browsers in the App Store, but not competing mail clients?

Uh?

http://itunes.apple.com/app/sparrow/id492573565?mt=8 http://itunes.apple.com/app/emailganizer-pro-email-reader/id...

Well kicking out current Google apps would be a huge blow to Google's mobile revenue, so they wouldn't really need to do anything else.

> if Google and a few other big hitters publicly encourage people to jailbreak their iOS devices

Why would Google do that? They'd rather people use Android devices.

Nothing would happen. Maybe there would be five more jailbroken iOS devices. People could not care less about jailbreaking not to mention many don't see Apple restrictions as lame.

The problem with ideas like this isn't so much a hypothetical situation of what would happen if we decided to burn bridges tomorrow (probably not good.) It's neither about "What would Apple do?" or "How could Google leverage this"... unfortunately the truth is much more mundane.

The point that I feel is forever-lost on this forum, is that you as a user in your position are statistically unique, there aren't a terrible lot of you versus the great expanse of smart phone users out there. The overwhelming majority of smart phone owners are not interested in any of this in the slightest. Ironically, this is especially even more pronounced on the Android platform due to the penetration tactics that have been engaged(taking the cheap-default-handset crown from Nokia). You see yourself and your peers with the latest Android devices, this creates a false bias that everyone is the same as yourself, but you're actually part of the less than 7% of the Android market that uses the latest Android software. (Many of which can't upgrade even if they wanted to.)

This forum presents a group of like minded users who understand ideas like jailbreaking, follow news releases from Google and other tech companies. (Amongst other tech related discussion.)

However, what this forum seems to forget is that they represent a fringe user of both the internet and of technology as a whole. You may use the technology subjectively better, but even then you're still just a sliver out there.

The bias of being surrounded by people who are technical/brilliant/whatever, whether it's in your technically-minded workplace, your awesome university or the online places you lurk. You are still such a tiny fraction of users. There are more people out there using their smart phones to twitter images of their breakfast than there are forum users here. Even the list of unknown tech start ups dwarfs this forum.

The point I'm making, is that you'll have more effect on people by helping them do something incredibly mundane, than you will influence them to change a behaviour for differences that they truly won't notice.

About the idea: No one is buying an Apple product because they hate Apple. If the sole reason to jail break the device and install a competing fully-fledged browser is to stick it to Apple, or provide an experience that is available on Android - then you're talking to someone who is already an Android customer, or will be very soon. There is a mistaken idea that iPhones are status-quo grudge purchases, far from it, rather they're quite expensive propositions in comparison to the vast array of cheaper Android devices.