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Re:Chrome for iOS by bri3d on Thursday June 28, 2012 @04:41PM (#4173799)
Chrome for iOS doesn't use V8 or the Chromium fork of WebKit, just UIWebView. [0] Because it's using WebViews, it's about 3x slower than the OS's Safari browser [1], because WebViews in sandboxed apps don't get the "Nitro" JavaScript JIT from iOS 5 onwards (presumably for mark-executable security reasons).

Unless the tab-sharing feature is crucial to more people than I thought, I don't think this app is going to be a runaway hit.

0: https://twitter.com/viviancromwell/status/218402587760795648 1: https://twitter.com/stroughtonsmith/status/21843446275153920...

Re:Chrome for iOS by dbloom on Thursday June 28, 2012 @04:56PM (#4173885)
Only JS execution is 3x slower -- everything else (DOM, layout, repaint, parsing) is the same.

Most web pages (and even web applications) are rarely bottlenecked by JS execution speed. (There are a few exceptions to this rule...for example, the JS GameBoy Color emulator probably won't work very well)

Re:Chrome for iOS by bzbarsky on Thursday June 28, 2012 @09:33PM (#4174829)
You mean the same as Mobile Safari, not the same as Chrome, right? Because "repaint" is not part of WebKit proper (it's implemented separately in Chrome and Safari, for example). And even "layout" is different code on iOS and in other WebKit ports...
Re:Chrome for iOS by dbloom on Friday June 29, 2012 @10:53AM (#4176877)
Yes, that's right: I'm comparing CriOS to Mobile Safari, not to Chrome for Android or PC/Mac.

That's an interesting point about layout. I hadn't even considered how font size adjustment and such comes into play.

Re:Chrome for iOS by moe on Thursday June 28, 2012 @08:45PM (#4174692)
feature is crucial

A crucial feature for me would be password-manager support (lastpass, 1passwd). The (lack of) password management on the iPad is driving me nuts. The half-baked external apps that let you copy/paste don't cut it for me. Nor the awfully slow and constantly crashing "LastPass browser".

Does Chrome finally bring relief?

Re:Chrome for iOS by pooriaazimi on Thursday June 28, 2012 @08:58PM (#4174726)
Hmm... I never thought of that.

Safari 6 added a new preferences panel for saved passwords. Unfortunately there's not an equivalent iPad setting (just checked on iPad 2, iOS 6 beta 1), but this might change between now and fall...

Maybe you should file a bug report?

Re:Chrome for iOS by moe on Thursday June 28, 2012 @10:13PM (#4174928)
I didn't have much success with the bugs that I filed at apple over the past years. They all went into a black hole, never received as much as a response.

The thing is that I don't want the iPad to just save passwords. It already does that, although somewhat unreliably for me. I want it to use my existing, ginormous list of passwords stored in LastPass.

I don't even try anymore to do anything that requires a login on the iPad, it's an exercise in frustration. Sometimes Safari remembers the password that I painfully transcribed for a site, usually it doesn't.

It's such a blatant oversight for a device that is touted no least as "the internet in your hands" that I keep wondering why I so rarely see other people mention it.

Re:Chrome for iOS by damncabbage on Thursday June 28, 2012 @10:48PM (#4175001)
It's such a blatant oversight for a device that is touted no least as "the internet in your hands" that I keep wondering why I so rarely see other people mention it.

I was with you up until this last sentence. People who know what LastPass is (let alone use it) are in a tiny minority.

Given how they treat the development community (hello Xcode nightmare), which I'd wager is a much larger group, I don't think it's entirely surprising that something like password manager support would be further down in the list of priorities.

Re:Chrome for iOS by spudlyo on Thursday June 28, 2012 @09:57PM (#4174892)
Agreed. 1Password support would be the thing that would cause me to use Chrome exclusively on iOS. The machinations I have to go through now with 1Password on iOS are extremely frustrating.
Re:Chrome for iOS by carlesfe on Friday June 29, 2012 @02:51AM (#4175536)
I have the same problem and found a solution, maybe it helps for you.

1password supports Dropbox integration, and it provides a web page inside your dropbox account (i.e. password protected) that you can log into with your master password to check them out.

It is not automatic nor integrated, and it does not allow you to add new passwords, but at least you can easily copy and paste them on the iPad.

Re:Chrome for iOS by KirinDave on Thursday June 28, 2012 @09:02PM (#4174734)
Chrome Sync allows you to sync passwords.
Re:Chrome for iOS by mtgx on Thursday June 28, 2012 @05:08PM (#4173944)
Only for Javascript stuff, though. If you're browsing mobile sites, it shouldn't affect you at all, as well as most websites on the web that aren't JS-heavy.
Re:Chrome for iOS by jonny_eh on Thursday June 28, 2012 @04:44PM (#4173812)
Well that's a bummer. The UI in the Chrome app is really slick!
Re:Chrome for iOS by wlesieutre on Thursday June 28, 2012 @05:03PM (#4173922)
Don't worry too much about that, it's only slower for javascript execution. The other features, including Chrome sync, unlimited tabs, "Request desktop site", more than make up for it.

The real stumbling block, IMO, is that without jailbreaking, links from other apps will always open in Safari.

Re:Chrome for iOS by dunham on Thursday June 28, 2012 @06:42PM (#4174340)
That is something I really hope Apple fixes.

They have a generic mechanism to send files to other apps, but not for URLs, making it painful to pass a URL to Twitter or an instant messaging app.

Re:Chrome for iOS by hboon on Thursday June 28, 2012 @07:20PM (#4174444)
Are you not thinking of custom URL schemes, which you can switch to another app and optionally pass small bits of data to it?
Re:Chrome for iOS by dunham on Saturday June 30, 2012 @11:07AM (#4181791)
I'm not sure what happens when multiple apps register for the same scheme.

I'm looking for a generic mechanism to let the user choose an app and pass an 'http' url to that app. I don't think I can do that with custom schemes, because each app would have its own scheme.

It could be accomplished via a custom file type if everybody standardized on it (say via a .url file of type text/x-url or maybe even text/plain). But I was hoping for something official.

The current way people do this is via the pasteboard, but the switching and pasting process feels awkward to me. I suppose that may be the best solution for now. Maybe apps should just handle things better if they're awoken with a new URL on the pasteboard (i.e. offer to take an action with it).

I'll think through my use cases some more.

Re:Chrome for iOS by hboon on Saturday June 30, 2012 @11:53AM (#4181925)
The first app or the last app (can't remember which) that registered for the custom URL scheme owns it.

> Maybe apps should just handle things better if they're awoken with a new URL on the pasteboard (i.e. offer to take an action with it).

This is almost how using custom URL schemes would work, but I think it's still superior to fiddling with the pasteboard though.

But you are right. There isn't a standard way to do it now. Most apps that expose or utilize this form integration has to come up with something themselves. Also see http://handleopenurl.com/

Re:Chrome for iOS by pooriaazimi on Thursday June 28, 2012 @08:59PM (#4174733)
> unlimited tabs

Safari on iOS 6 (on iPad, at least) finally lets you open more than 9 tabs! The new max is 25, which is enough.

Re:Chrome for iOS by wlesieutre on Thursday June 28, 2012 @09:57PM (#4174889)
Safari on the iPhone in iOS 5 only gets 8. I wonder if Chrome for iOS gets any sort of tab recovery on crashes. It doesn't happened frequently, but it's annoying when I have to quit and relaunch safari for whatever reason and lose everything I had open.
Re:Chrome for iOS by hanapbuhay on Thursday June 28, 2012 @06:32PM (#4174318)
At first glance, the UI feels pretty good. Here's some screenshots of Google Chrome on iOS: http://flic.kr/s/aHsjAhkquN
Re:Chrome for iOS by dakrisht on Friday June 29, 2012 @04:14AM (#4175735)
Couldn't agree more. More like 1.5-2x slower but it certainly isn't a speed improvement over Safari.

Didn't know about Nitro, but this app is a flop because it has to be on top of UIWebView.

Not sure there's any other way to build this app, Google has some bright engineers.

Re:Chrome for iOS by gcp on Friday June 29, 2012 @11:50AM (#4177219)
I don't think this app is going to be a runaway hit.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57463546-93/google-chrome-a...

Most popular free application for iOS.

Marketing, better UI, sync features, herd mentality, who'll tell?

Re:Chrome for iOS by Killswitch on Thursday June 28, 2012 @05:05PM (#4173932)
Luckily for me, the main reasons I am using it is desktop to mobile and password syncing and stuff.
Re:Chrome for iOS by webwright on Thursday June 28, 2012 @06:05PM (#4174215)
The bummer here for Google (and anyone else who'd like to provide an alternative to Apple's apps on the iOS platform) is that there's no way to set your default browser. Or email client. Or calendar. It'll be hard to use chrome if Safari opens up every time I click a link in email or any other app.
Re:Chrome for iOS by BruceIV on Thursday June 28, 2012 @09:14PM (#4174768)
I wonder if Apple is ever going to run into legal trouble for this - it can't be much different than Microsoft's troubles with bundling IE, WMP, etc. on the desktop.
Re:Chrome for iOS by nathan_f77 on Thursday June 28, 2012 @10:07PM (#4174917)
I'm sure it's possible to do with a jailbreak tweak, and I'll look into that. I've always wondered, are many HN readers jailbreakers?

EDIT: This looks like it should do the job - http://www.redmondpie.com/change-default-browser-on-iphone-w... Just have to wait for an update.

Re:Chrome for iOS by cloudwalking on Thursday June 28, 2012 @06:08PM (#4174227)
It is a bummer you can't make Chrome your default browser. However, if you move Safari to a folder and put Chrome in your launch bar, Safari being default won't bother you too much.
Re:Chrome for iOS by brntn on Thursday June 28, 2012 @08:37PM (#4174659)
Until you click a link in an email or app.
Re:Chrome for iOS by srik on Thursday June 28, 2012 @04:27PM (#4173740)
Thanks. Chrome doesn't show up on Appstore search. The Appstore could really use an overhaul in my opinion.
Re:Chrome for iOS by melvinmt on Thursday June 28, 2012 @05:49PM (#4174146)
Just navigate to this page on iOS and click on the iTunes link. It will open up the App Store and redirect you to the app.
Re:Chrome for iOS by msrpotus on Thursday June 28, 2012 @04:31PM (#4173752)
Search in general on the Appstore isn't very good; not just for this.
Re:Chrome for iOS by nc on Thursday June 28, 2012 @05:20PM (#4174005)
There's usually a few hours delay before new apps show up in the search index.
Re:Chrome for iOS by swang on Thursday June 28, 2012 @05:31PM (#4174062)
You have to search, "Google Chrome" and it's the last result (of 25).

At least when searching through App Store on the iPhone.

Re:Chrome for iOS by culturestate on Thursday June 28, 2012 @10:12PM (#4174927)
As of now, it's #1 when searching for "Chrome."
Re:Chrome for iOS by cmelbye on Thursday June 28, 2012 @06:07PM (#4174222)
Luckily, it does get an overhaul in iOS 6.
Re:Chrome for iOS by ojbyrne on Thursday June 28, 2012 @07:20PM (#4174443)
It did for me a couple of minutes ago.
Re:Chrome for iOS by jimdanz on Thursday June 28, 2012 @04:32PM (#4173760)
+1. Many thanks.
Re:Chrome for iOS by mofle on Friday June 29, 2012 @07:10AM (#4176084)
Add this as a bookmark in Mobile Safari to be able to quickly open pages in Chrome:

    javascript:location.protocol='googlechrome'
Re:Chrome for iOS by sirn on Thursday June 28, 2012 @07:47PM (#4174541)
I have high hope for Chrome for iOS to be like the Google Search app[1] which is simply fun to use. Instead, on an iPad, what we got is just a desktop UI slab on top of touch interface… and seems to trash old tab faster than Mobile Safari. It's kind of sad.

Edit: I was wrong about tab trashing, seems like old tab reloads when you come back from Incognito mode.

[1]: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/google-search/id284815942?mt=...

Re:Chrome for iOS by mtgx on Thursday June 28, 2012 @05:10PM (#4173957)
This could be a nice "trojan horse" into the iOS ecosystem. Get Apple users hooked enough on Chrome, that they will want to switch to Android for the "real Chrome experience". I know a lot of people are not using iPhones because they can't live without the Gmail app for Android.
Re:Chrome for iOS by k-mcgrady on Thursday June 28, 2012 @06:22PM (#4174278)
It's possible but I seriously doubt users would switch to Android because of a browser. Especially when they've already spent a lot of money on iOS apps and are familiar with the iOS ecosystem. I also doubt any mainstream user will understand that Chrome on iOS is slower than it could be because of Apple's rules.
Re:Chrome for iOS by azakai on Thursday June 28, 2012 @08:48PM (#4174699)
> It's possible but I seriously doubt users would switch to Android because of a browser. [..] I also doubt any mainstream user will understand that Chrome on iOS is slower than it could be because of Apple's rules.

Yes, it seems more likely that the opposite of what GP said will happen: iOS users will try Chrome, and seeing it is 3-4x slower than the default Safari, will assume that Chrome would be slow on Android too - it has the exact same name after all - so they'll stick with iOS.

Re:Chrome for iOS by e_proxus on Friday June 29, 2012 @05:12AM (#4175854)
I'm more curious to see if Google, or users, will try to use the Chrome launch on iOS as a wedge into getting Apple to open up the OS to allow alternative defaults than Apple's own.
Re:Chrome for iOS by danvk on Thursday June 28, 2012 @08:40PM (#4174671)
Autocompletion in the omnibox is way more aggressive than in Safari. You typically only need to type one or two characters to get to the sites you visit most frequently. In a lot of cases, this will more than make up for any JS performance differences between Chrome and Safari.
Re:Chrome for iOS by 10dpd on Thursday June 28, 2012 @10:54PM (#4175014)
Re:Chrome for iOS by zanny on Friday June 29, 2012 @03:55AM (#4175686)
On my 3gs Chrome is showing some significant slowdown over Safari, in JS, page loads, and scrolling - all are delayed. The reasons have already been explained, but it is still sad. The omnibar makes it worth it though, gosh I have missed thee.
Re:Chrome for iOS by toddn on Thursday June 28, 2012 @04:41PM (#4173800)
I'm excited to use this, but wow, the sign in flow for people using 2-factor authentication is awful.
Re:Chrome for iOS by smackfu on Thursday June 28, 2012 @05:45PM (#4174125)
It's bizarre. Why is a Google app using an application specific password instead of your authentication code? The only reason an app should not use the two factors is if it's some legacy protocol that only takes a single userid/password pair. WTF.
Re:Chrome for iOS by notJim on Thursday June 28, 2012 @06:55PM (#4174377)
Google's own apps should really support 2-factor auth, and they should improve the flow for app-specific passwords.

The flow for getting an app-specifc password is awful. It takes a large number of clicks (I think 7, but I lost count), and several of the pages are confusing. Not only that, but you have to enter your password and a name of the app. Ideally, it would be a reduced number of clicks (like 2–3), entering your password, and that's it. Adding a name for the app should be optional. My apps all have names like “alsjdlajshd” or “9”, because I'm impatient, and the likelihood that I'll ever need to invalidate one is low enough that I would be okay with just invalidating them all.

Re:Chrome for iOS by kmfrk on Thursday June 28, 2012 @05:27PM (#4174035)
Are you using [application authorization](https://www.google.com/accounts/b/0/IssuedAuthSubTokens?hl=e...)?
Re:Chrome for iOS by JBiserkov on Thursday June 28, 2012 @09:32PM (#4174827)
After a few hours of heavy usage:

-I had forgotten how AWESOME omnibox is. You can speak to it!!

-Safari habits die hard

-The only thing I'm missing is the 'Reader' feature.

Re:Chrome for iOS by e_proxus on Friday June 29, 2012 @05:16AM (#4175862)
The lack of an OmniBox is what disturbs me the most about Safari on iOS right now. The most common use case being entering one of the boxes, realizing I don't have the URL in my head and need to search (or vice versa). Also, Chrome's OmniBox let's you search your history at the same time as you search the web and enter URLs... priceless.
Re:Chrome for iOS by MarkMc on Thursday June 28, 2012 @11:11PM (#4175047)
Several problems:

1. Not very robust - it keeps forgetting the Google passwords I've typed in

2. Why do I need to enter two Google passwords - my 'main' password AND an application-specific password?

3. Not very easy to use. For example, where's the option to see my browsing history on Chrome for iPhone?

Re:Chrome for iOS by icarus_drowning on Friday June 29, 2012 @12:11AM (#4175193)
2. Do you use 2-factor authentication? I do, and so I'm used to seeing this on applications that don't fully support the 2-factor authentication, which is, I assume why it was asking.
Re:Chrome for iOS by sixcorners on Friday June 29, 2012 @12:55AM (#4175315)
If you encrypt your stuff using your Google password, that might be why it is needed.
Re:Chrome for iOS by AlexMuir on Thursday June 28, 2012 @05:46PM (#4174126)
"the item you tried to buy is no longer available."

That was brief.

Re:Chrome for iOS by yalooze on Friday June 29, 2012 @08:53AM (#4176350)
After using it for a while now it's made me realise there's a ton of features I've been missing when using mobile Safari:

-New tab with Most Visited and Recently Closed -Google Sync for bookmarks but more importantly it instantly empowers my Omnibox -the keyboard has an extra character row at the top that includes hyphens (simple but nice) -Swipe between tabs -find in page -Open in new tab defaults to opening in the background (I've missed this a lot) -unlimited tabs

I realise some of these aren't unique to mobile Chrome but as far as I'm aware they are missing from mobile Safari and they're the reasons I'll be sticking with Chrome.

Re:Chrome for iOS by forbes on Friday June 29, 2012 @12:54AM (#4175313)
I love that it opens tabs behind, unlike Safari. Only thing I don't like is the address bar using up too much room (not disappearing).
Re:Chrome for iOS by sgrytoyr on Friday June 29, 2012 @07:04AM (#4176072)
Yes, it’s very strange (and annoying) that it doesn’t disappear. With the swipe-to-switch-tabs gesture, there’s even less reason to show it permanently than in Mobile Safari.
Re:Chrome for iOS by thethimble on Friday June 29, 2012 @02:20PM (#4178179)
Can someone please explain Apple and Microsoft's insistence to push Safari and IE respectively? It seems that they have little to gain.

In this case, why does Apple mandate the use of UIWebView instead of allowing a native implementation of Webkit+V8? It just seems like Apple is being stubborn as usual.

Re:Chrome for iOS by chris_engel on Friday June 29, 2012 @06:35AM (#4176005)
It doesnt have the reader feature that i like in safari. Fine, I thought - lets get the readability bookmarklet.

Turns out Google Chrome doesn't support bookmarklets... What the hell, Google!

Re:Chrome for iOS by chris_engel on Friday June 29, 2012 @06:38AM (#4176009)
Just found out: the bookmarklet works if you manually copy and paste it into the url bar, but not, if you selct it from the bookmarks list...
Re:Chrome for iOS by dvdhsu on Friday June 29, 2012 @09:26AM (#4176470)
Chrome doesn't support blocking of third party cookies. You either have them, or you don't.

http://db.tt/ldZUNuJo

Re:Chrome for iOS by nathan_f77 on Thursday June 28, 2012 @10:08PM (#4174920)
If this lets me have my passwords and bookmarks on my iPhone, I'm definitely saying goodbye to Xmarks and Lastpass.
Re:Chrome for iOS by draz on Thursday June 28, 2012 @07:28PM (#4174469)
I downloaded it, and I like it. I wish they also had the swipe-to-right to see the browsing history.
Re:Chrome for iOS by knes on Friday June 29, 2012 @07:47AM (#4176166)
This. Drive me nuts that I can swipe left & right on my mac touchpad but can't on my iPad?! I don't want to tap those tiny arrows anymore :(
Re:Chrome for iOS by dewiz on Friday June 29, 2012 @04:23AM (#4175753)
finally a solution to open more than 10 tabs. I was quite excited to have a way to open those 30+ news to read while traveling on the underground.... sad news, when I switch tab the browser reload the page and lose the content... wtf! back to safari :(
Re:Chrome for iOS by e_proxus on Friday June 29, 2012 @05:17AM (#4175866)
Safari does that all the time as well.
Re:Chrome for iOS by dewiz on Thursday June 28, 2012 @05:33PM (#4174073)
just tried to install and it looks like the app has been removed? anyone that could confirm?
Re:Chrome for iOS by dansingerman on Thursday June 28, 2012 @05:40PM (#4174107)
Yes, just got "The item you tried to buy is no longer available"...hmmmm...https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VzS7TgKtYRE/T-zQMcuxLXI/A...
Re:Chrome for iOS by objclxt on Thursday June 28, 2012 @06:21PM (#4174272)
Unlike on Android, where pushing an app live is almost instantaneous, on iTunes it takes 24 hours for apps to propagate through all the various content distribution nodes.

It's much more likely it's this, since knowing Apple's review teams I would strongly suspect when they saw the "Google Chrome" app in the review queue they raised it up the management chain.

There is no rhyme or reason to this, it's just how it goes in the crazy world of iTunes Connect and the app store.

Re:Chrome for iOS by cmelbye on Thursday June 28, 2012 @06:08PM (#4174228)
Took me a few tries. For me, it said that the app couldn't be downloaded a couple times. I just hit "Retry".
Re:Chrome for iOS by fabianhoward on Thursday June 28, 2012 @05:38PM (#4174096)
I can't install it either.
Re:Chrome for iOS by jimeh on Thursday June 28, 2012 @06:09PM (#4174231)
Same issue here too.
Re:Chrome for iOS by abcd_f on Thursday June 28, 2012 @05:57PM (#4174179)
Can't imagine the amount of arm twisting that was involved in getting this into the App Store. Must've really come down to the ultimate "No Google for you" argument.
Re:Chrome for iOS by TazeTSchnitzel on Thursday June 28, 2012 @06:28PM (#4174304)
Eh, I doubt Apple would reject it. IIRC Mozilla already did something similar.
Re:Chrome for iOS by drgath on Thursday June 28, 2012 @06:45PM (#4174344)
Same thing as Y! Axis as well.
Re:Chrome for iOS by gcp on Friday June 29, 2012 @07:10AM (#4176085)
Care to explain?
Re:Chrome for iOS by TazeTSchnitzel on Friday June 29, 2012 @07:29AM (#4176123)
They did a similar tab sync app skinned like a different browser. Of course, WebKit, not Gecko.
Re:Chrome for iOS by gcp on Friday June 29, 2012 @11:48AM (#4177199)
Do you mean this? http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/mobile/home/

It doesn't even pretend to be a browser AFAIK.

Re:Chrome for iOS by TazeTSchnitzel on Friday June 29, 2012 @11:50AM (#4177220)
Yeah, Yahoo! Axis would be a better comparison.
Re:Chrome for iOS by adiM on Friday June 29, 2012 @01:10AM (#4175350)
How does it compare with Opera Mini browser?
Re:Chrome for iOS by rplnt on Friday June 29, 2012 @03:47AM (#4175670)
Not an answer, just an elaboration on differences: Apple doesn't allow "duplicating functionality" or something along those lines and as other comment already mentioned, Chrome is a stock browser with different UI. That's also why there is no Opera Mobile on iOS. Opera Mini on the other hand bypasses this rule by being application which shows already preprocessed web (similar to Turbo function on Desktop or Mobile).
Re:Chrome for iOS by username3 on Friday June 29, 2012 @10:15AM (#4176679)
Reopen closed tab? Google Chrome for iOS.
Re:Chrome for iOS by username3 on Tuesday July 10, 2012 @11:20AM (#4224200)
Recently closed on New Tab page
Re:Chrome for iOS by jfhollingworth on Friday June 29, 2012 @04:38AM (#4175792)
Unless I'm mistaken Nitro is actually enabled as of iOS 5.
Re:Chrome for iOS by Synaesthesia on Friday June 29, 2012 @04:49AM (#4175819)
No, sorry it's not, for security reasons. Thus it probably won't be enabled in the future either.
Re:Chrome for iOS by dakimov on Thursday June 28, 2012 @07:45PM (#4174535)
Somewhy I could not find it with the search in the app store on iPad itself.

Just installed it. Sweet. Finally I've got the same browsing experience on my iPad as on a desktop.