Google Chrome now works on iOS

http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/28/google-chrome-ihone-ipad/

by jpadilla_ • 14 years ago

198 118 14 years ago

techcrunch.com

SlimHop• 14 years ago

Does Chrome on iOS support WebGL?

pcwalton• 14 years ago

Don't see how it can, as it's just a UIWebView.

ComputerGuru• 14 years ago

UIWebViews can be configured to run WebGL, though this is not officially supported/sanctioned by Apple.

Synaesthesia3• 14 years ago

Safari doesn't even officially support it yet, on iOS.

hughw• 14 years ago

Just checked: No.

nthitz• 14 years ago

Does it use it's own rendering engine or is it just interface on top of a UIWebView?

Synaesthesia3• 14 years ago

Apps on the store have to use UIWebView, which of course doesn't get the Nitro JavaScript engine.

gcp• 14 years ago

Does this mean it will be slow as molasses on JavaScript-heavy sites?

tubbo• 14 years ago

They "have to"? I was under the impression that you had a choice of UIWebView and your own custom implementation. Are they really going to block sales of an app if it has an alternative JS engine?

mbrubeck10• 14 years ago

Vivian Li Cromwell from the Chrome team confirms that it uses the system rendering engine (presumably via UIWebView) and does not include the V8 JIT:

https://twitter.com/viviancromwell/status/218402587760795648

mtgx3• 14 years ago

Well that's unfortunate. And didn't we learn last year that Apple left WebView twice as slow as the browser? Or did they fix that?

raldi2• 14 years ago

The "Request Desktop Site" button is the killer feature for power users.

nixarn• 14 years ago

yeah, that's so far the best feature this app comes with.

skeletonjelly• 14 years ago

I like how it doesn't just refresh the page, but the original you requested. So if you get redirected to a mobile subdomain and check "request desktop site" you'll get the original domain. Killer!

ajross2• 14 years ago

Can someone clarify? I thought replacing the browser (actually even stronger: rendering web content using anything but the browser) was one of the items forbidden by the app store guidelines?

glhaynes• 14 years ago

It's still the system rendering and JavaScript engines.

Edit: Which, from the vast majority of users' perspectives, are functionally identical.

speg• 14 years ago

While Chrome for iOS will include a number of key features, including incognito mode and tab syncing across devices, the browser will still use Apple's WebKit-based engine required by the App Store developer guidelines. It also will lack the Nitro JavaScript engine that Apple uses to speed Safari's performance.

kyrra• 14 years ago

Which is why I still like Android as a mobile platform. Google gives users a choice, Apple makes you live within their walled garden.

ricefield• 14 years ago

So, no V8 or Nitro, but Chrome/Chromium uses Webkit, so renders should be the same (just slower) right?

wavephorm• 14 years ago

  still use Apple's WebKit-based engine required by the App Store developer guidelines

This is pretty retarded, and should really be looked at by the DoJ. To hobble all web browsers like this is something that even Microsoft, at the height of their dominance, didn't even attempt.

masklinn2• 14 years ago

> I thought replacing the browser (actually even stronger: rendering web content using anything but the browser) was one of the items forbidden by the app store guidelines?

The real case is somewhat more complex:

1. It is not possible to replace the built-in browser (there are no hooks to have an other application handle e.g. `http` links), but it is perfectly possible to release (and sell) a "browser" application through which websites can be accessed

2. It is allowed to render any content, but it is not allowed to execute downloaded code save through the built-in interpreter, so a browser can't run javascript code locally. On the other hand, it's perfectly possible to have a "thin-client" browser and do all rendering on a remote server, that's what Opera Mini does.

nextstep2• 14 years ago

But, Chrome on iOS will still be a "second class citizen" the way Opera mini and the other browsers on the AppStore. If you want to open a link in Chrome, you will need to copy/paste the URL, no "Open in Chrome" functionality like Safari has. For better or for worse, Apple has not opened up system-wide integration of third party apps, and I don't seem them allowing you to change your default browser anytime soon.

mistercow2• 14 years ago

What's pretty nauseating about it is that it's exactly the kind of anti-competitive crap that Microsoft pulled in the first browser war, only more so.

cooldeal4• 14 years ago

And while Mozilla made really loud noises with threats of complaints and legal action about Windows RT and Microsoft, they completely ignored Apple and made Firefox Sync which just syncs bookmarks etc.

cema• 14 years ago

More so. But Apple tends to get good grades on the perception front, which is no less important for the general public than the technical front.

brian_cloutier• 14 years ago

Why do people keep bringing this up? The situations are completely different.

Microsoft bundled IE with Windows at a time where the internet was still painfully slow and it was difficult to download a different browser. They also allegedly put IE-specific APIs into Windows, giving it an unfair advantage.

However, neither of these would have been enough to convict, if Microsoft hadn't also had a monopoly over the PC. Back in those days, Windows was _the_ operating system. Linux was still new and unknown, and Macintosh wasn't a threat by any means. Bill Gates was sometimes compared to the president in terms of power and influence.

Bundling Windows and IE was an abuse of Microsoft's monopoly in the OS market, in a successful attempt to take over the browser market.

Apple has no such monopoly. Like many others have said here before, if you don't like what they do with their platform you can choose not to buy apple products. When you say they're being anti-competitive, you're implying that iOS and OSX are massive ecosystems which include meaningful competition in sub-markets that Apple is giving itself an unfair advantage in. No such sub-market exists.

bgarbiak• 14 years ago

That shouldn't be that much of a problem as most of the pages on iOS are displayed in an in-app web views (in apps like: Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Ok, "bookmark-icons" will open in Safari - doubt it's a very popular feature though.

thechut• 14 years ago

What a bunch of walled-garden bullshit. It's not even clear that having a full featured Chrome would hurt Apple in anyway

stcredzero• 14 years ago

They want to keep the threat of making Bing the default search engine.

recoiledsnake4• 14 years ago

>It's not even clear that having a full featured Chrome would hurt Apple in anyway

Perhaps this is how Apple sees it:

The browser might create a SDK that makes web apps work more like native apps thus resulting in reducing Apple's control over apps. Also, look at things like NaCl and how plugins like Flash might be enabled by browsers with rendering engines.

mtgx3• 14 years ago

Exactly what the users should be requesting from Apple. You're lucky Apple at least tries to be competitive on the browser front, but if they didn't do that, iOS users and developers would be in big trouble by now.

cooldeal4• 14 years ago

The headline should read Google Chrome Skin now works on iOS. For all intents and purposes, the heart of the browser, i.e the rendering and scripting engines are not running on the iPad or iPhone.

Would it be accurate to state that IE now works on the iPad if Microsoft ported the IE browser chrome(UI) to the iPad?

TazeTSchnitzel6• 14 years ago

Eh, it's WebKit. Not quite the same WebKit, but close enough.

It's not like they are using completely different rendering engines.

recoiledsnake4• 14 years ago

There is no WebGL and other HTML5 features that Chrome has. Also, not only there is no V8 JS Engine support, but I suspect that Apple's NitroJS engine won't work in Chrome because it probably uses UIWebView to render sites.

nextstep2• 14 years ago

A browser is way more than a rendering engine. Even if this app was just a skin for UIWebView that incorporated Chrome sync and the look and feel of desktop Chrome, why not call it Chrome for iOS?

Terretta• 14 years ago

> The headline should read Google Chrome Skin

That would be redundant. Long before Google had a browser, the URL bar, buttons, scroll boxes, etc, of a browser (as opposed to the rendering engine) were called chrome.[1]

Developers didn't refer to browser skin, developers referred to browser chrome.

This is — quite literally in the original sense of the term — Google Chrome for the WebKit rendering engine.

1. "chrome: the browser UI around the web page" - https://developer.mozilla.org/Talk:en/Chrome

jonursenbach• 14 years ago

Google Chrome is built on top of WebKit, so this is rather Google Chrome for Safari.

mdwelsh2• 14 years ago

Note that Chrome on iOS does use the Chrome networking stack, which has a lot of enhancements - including SPDY.

chimmy• 14 years ago

But it still feels slower than Safari too me.

tree_of_item2• 14 years ago

If it's just a WebView with JavaScriptCore, what's the point? Is tab syncing the only benefit?

kylebrown6• 14 years ago

Its not JavaScriptCore, its webkit (UIWebView which is non-Nitro).

Tab syncing is one heck of a benefit, I can't wait to switch. Now I'm definitely going to stick with Chrome on my desktop, even though I'd been considering going back to Firefox. Quite disappointing on Apple's part that its only in iOS 6 that Notes and Calendar will be synced with OS X, still not Safari tabs.

mbrubeck10• 14 years ago

Doesn't Safari on iOS 6 include tab sync? http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/11/safari-on-ios-6-to-feature-...

tree_of_item2• 14 years ago

Is JavaScriptCore not the WebKit JavaScript engine?

My point was that one of Chrome's main allures is V8, and if it's using stock WebKit (and therefore JavaScriptCore) there doesn't seem to be much point in using Chrome at all.

emehrkay• 14 years ago

So does this browser not automatically block third party cookies like the default Safari does?

georgemcbay• 14 years ago

This is a poor decision on Google's part. The end result is it tarnishes the Chrome brand.

Chrome's features like private browsing and tab/bookmark syncing are nice, but the defining feature of the brand IMO is that it is a very fast web browser. By linking the name to an app that will always be inherently slower than Safari on iOS, the brand is lessened with no significant upside.

I understand their desire to allow Chrome desktop users to have some meaningful interop between their desktop and mobile browsers, but I think they would have been much better served by not pretending this is an actual Chrome experience (much in the way Firefox allows some interop but keeps the distinction clear).

raldi2• 14 years ago

Download it and try it out -- to me, iOS Chrome seems much faster than Safari: http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/chrome/id535886823?l=nl&m...

adamjernst• 14 years ago

Apple will never allow a JIT Javascript engine on any app except their own, for security reasons.

(App Store apps can't allocate pages with the executable bit set, which is a good idea really.)

mmackh• 14 years ago

I have to agree. The app itself feels very native (gestures, smooth animations) and browsing is fast too. It could be the absence of the blue bar on Mobile Safari, but webpages render instantly.

mdwelsh2• 14 years ago

Also keep in mind it's using the Chrome networking stack, just not the rendering and JS engine.

dedene• 14 years ago

It's available now: http://itunes.apple.com/be/app/chrome/id535886823?l=nl&m...

Albuca• 14 years ago

iOS Chrome requires iOS 4.3, while Android Chrome requires Android 4.0.

Ironically that means that 99% of the iOS users can use Chrome, while only 10% of the Android users can.

dannygarcia• 14 years ago

It's ridiculous that there are no debugging / console tools included. It's difficult for me to take this browser seriously as a web developer – especially when compared to Mobile Safari in iOS6.

TazeTSchnitzel6• 14 years ago

Give them time, I'm sure they'll add that soon.

Although having to use UIWebView might constrain them.

JBiserkov2• 14 years ago

The icon is similar to Gmail on iOS - "wide" black margins. Any idea why?

Everything else seems to be working just fine, not slow or anything. The omnibox is really nice.

vibrunazo• 14 years ago

Probably in protest of iOS icon guidelines :P

Jyaif• 14 years ago

Your icons _must_ be (rounded) squares. You can't use transparency.

JBiserkov2• 14 years ago

  (rounded) square side = 114px = 2*57
  tau=2pi
  area:= tau*r*r/2
  Chrome:    margin: 16px; radius: 41px = 57-16; area:=  840.5*tau
  Wordpress: margin: 12px; radius: 45px = 57-12; area:= 1012.5*tau
  Clock:     margin:  9px; radius: 48px = 57- 9; area:= 1152.0*tau
  Circle:    margin:  0px; radius: 57px = 57- 0; area:= 1624.5*tau

(Measurments taken from a screenshot on iPod touch "retina" resolution.)

So Chrome's circle area is 73% of Clock's and only 52% of the theoretical limit.

While I was playing with this I got inspired by Google+ for iOS and Metro and asked "What if it doesn't fit, but insead fills the (rounded) square?"

See for yourself. http://biserkov.com/pics/Chrome-on-iOS-icon-ideas.png

Blue circle radius: 21px; White circle radius: 25px

Disclaimer: I used the svg Chrome logo from Wikipedia. I'm no designer.

mwyvern• 14 years ago

I am disappointed that extensions are not supported.

wlesieutre• 14 years ago

It doesn't seem to let you set custom search engines, which is a bit disappointing. More options than Google, Yahoo, and Bing was one of the reasons I'd been hoping for this.

Even without that, the easily accessible incognito mode (Safari's is through the system wide Settings app), request desktop site, and bookmark sync is still worth more to me than Nitro/V8.

On the jailbreak side, Browser Changer doesn't support Chrome yet. Hopefully that will come soon.

TazeTSchnitzel6• 14 years ago

I'd imagine custom search engines etc. will come soon. They just want to get it out there for now.

Xyzodiac• 14 years ago

Seriously though, I can't get Chrome on my Android phone because it's stuck on Gingerbread but I can if I buy an iPhone. That makes loads of sense Google.

redrory• 14 years ago

I've fiddled around with it for 10-15 minutes and I love it. It feels much more responsive. Switching and creating tabs are much faster.

I'm on a 3GS

Google Chrome now works on iOS

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