Chrome for iOS – How it continues to outshine Safari



Contributing Writer
Photo: Cartoon Cellphone Credit: Rowlanda Mangham


Chrome for iOS has been a stellar product from its roll-out.

The speed, the tabs, the intuitiveness of Chrome leave Apple’s Safari browser in the dust… unless you refuse to jailbreak your iPhone.  Then Safari has you by default.

What does Chrome for iOS tell us about Safari?

Safari has been the default browser since the iPhone was released in 2007.  In the time that it has had the monopoly on browsing experience and mustered two sharing buttons: email and tweets.  While emailing is a sweet act to perform for your Grandma who can’t figure out how to get into “the Facebook,” it is also quite inefficient to share anything on a large scale.  Of course the obvious solution to that problem is to integrate with a social network that only 20% of people use: Twitter.

Now that Chrome for iOS has integrated social sharing for Facebook and Google Plus (in addition to Twitter and email), Apple announced that they will integrate Facebook sharing into iOS 6.

What Chrome for iOS highlights about Safari is that Apple didn’t see too much of a need to improve the product once it had a monopoly on browsing in their products.  Then Google inexplicably introduced Chrome for iOS and showed how far Safari had fallen behind in terms of performance and utility.  But what if Google’s advances into browsing on iOS are somewhat explicable…….

Google Plus opens links in Chrome for iOS

Google released a means within iOS for developers to open links in the Chrome browser by default.  They have already integrated that into the Google Plus application for iOS.  This probably doesn’t mean that all (or even many) applications will choose to change their default browser settings, but it must make enough sense for Google to invest in and develop it.  As Apple intimates a shift in their reliance on Google (already eliminating the YouTube app from being a default program on the new iPhone), this gives Google a possible leverage point to stay integrated into these systems.

Whatever the case, Chrome for iOS continues to innovate.  Hopefully their new sharing integration will serve as a shot across the bow of Apple to start innovating Safari as well.

 

Photo Credit

Jim Dougherty

Jim Dougherty

Writer and chief of miscellany at leaderswest.com

I aspire to give people something to think about rather than tell them what to do. My favorite Google Alert is “social media research,” I am increasingly compelled by Gen Z, and I appreciate good writers agnostic of where they write. At one time I was Kred’s 12th most influential social media blogger and Klout’s most influential person on the topic of David Hasselhoff. Transplant from Seattle living in Cincinnati. Haven’t entirely adopted the local sports teams yet.

Jim Dougherty

@jimdougherty

Writer about social media and tech at Leaders West, I also tweet as @leaderswest.

@danpurvis They want their pound of flesh…. :) Thanks for sharing! – 16 hours ago

Jim Dougherty

Jim Dougherty

  • http://twitter.com/Julzz Julius Pap 

    yet its slow as hell….

  • jimdougherty

    Thanks, Julius. I haven’t experienced speed issues with it, but I think it’s possible I’m such a fan of Chrome that I give it a break! Appreciate you reading and commenting!

  • http://cirquedumot.com/new-readers/ Susan Silver

    This is something I know nothing about. I am still in the small percentage of people who still use a dumb cell phone. I can browse, but nothing too fancy.

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