I use Chrome on my Macs about 75% of the time, the rest of the time, I use Safari. Unfortunately, Firefox is just not up to par with the other browsers in many aspects, so I have stopped using it. Today Google released Chrome for iOS and I installed it in my iPhone and iPad. I’ll spare the long explanation and the technical aspects and give you my opinion of what I have seen so far.
First, when you install it, it will ask you to sign in with a Google account in order to sync bookmarks, tabs, etc, just like on the desktop. This also means that you’re signed into your Gmail account. If you don’t want that (and I don’t), you have to go to mail.google.com, and once you’re in your email, sign out. This will not disconnect the syncing, it will just log you out of Gmail.
Second, the UI and the gestures are pretty cool. On the iPhone, when you hit the tab list icon, it shows the tabs like a deck of cards one on top of the other and as you scroll up and down with your finger you see each open tab. If the iPhone is sideways, it does the same thing but on landscape mode where you can see a little bit better which tab is which.
Third, it’s slow. It is not Google’s fault. Apple has a very strict rule which makes every browser on the App Store use iOS (Safari’s) rendering engine. This means that Google Chrome is not using it’s own javascript engine, it’s using the same one Safari uses.
Fourth, also because of Apple’s rules, it can not be set as the default browser. So if you click on a link in mail or twitter, etc, it will still default to Safari.
Fifth, and this is the coolest thing which I don’t know why Apple is not doing through iCloud, it saves and syncs your passwords between devices. I use Chrome on my Macs primarily because of this. And the weird thing is that Apple used to sync the keychain with MobileMe.
There are many more points to be made, but these are the most relevant to me at this time. It is a nice browser with many cool features, but it’s hampered by some Apple rules that are designed for security, but have the collateral effect of crippling this app.
[...] I don’t see myself buying an Android phone. Google released Chrome for iOS yesterday, and even though it’s not the fastest browser available (because of the App Store rules), the syncing and password management are really great. My friend, [...]