Chrome and Google Drive on iOS

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Google on Thursday announced that its Chrome browser will launch in the App Store for iPhone and iPad, as well as a native iOS application connected to the Google Drive service.

Part of what makes Safari so fast on iOS is the Nitro engine. I wonder how Chrome will compete with that.



  • http://twitter.com/pberry Patrick Berry

    Per Gruber: “It’s not the Chrome rendering or JavaScript engines — the App Store rules forbid that. It’s the iOS system version of WebKit wrapped in Google’s own browser UI.”

  • http://twitter.com/kipb Kip Beatty

    At this point it’s simply ridiculous that Apple hasn’t updated the core IOS WebKit to use Nitro. So many parts of the iOS experience suffer from this, as it’s very common to be on a web page in an app other than Safari (Zite, Instapaper, Tweetbot, etc.). I understand why they limit apps to the core WebKit, but Apple really needs to address this.

    BTW: Does anyone know if this had been addressed in iOS 6?

  • Lukas

    They can’t compete, because Apple doesn’t allow it. Otherwise, Safari would probably be beaten by Chrome, because as far as I know, Google’s V8 engine is ahead of Apple’s Nitro in the JavaScript performance game.

  • http://twitter.com/MickeNabb Michael Nabb

    I just tried Chrome for iOS and it is an improvement over Safari in many regards. The tab handling is way better for one thing, I’ve wondered why Apple hasn’t added tab swiping for a long time. Also the way you can access your tabs from other devices is really a great feature.

    • http://www.thediceguys.com Dean Lewis

      Tab swiping is in Safari in Mountain Lion coming in July. I imagine this will come to iOS6 Safari as well, if they don’t actually roll it out in an incremental update before then?