Google Highlights Chrome Integration Tools for iOS Developers

[X38]

What's the point of this? If I wanted google's snoopware on my phone, I'd get an android. I can't imagine any reason to pollute my iPhone with their spy browser.

 

[ALange]

about spying...

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/09/04/anonymous-claims-hack-caught-fbi-spying-on-apple-customers/

in internet era everything and everyone is spying 😉

 

[Timur]

Agreed. Microsoft was sued for this

Hopefully iOS 7 let's users decide what they want or class action lawsuit

Not exactly. You always could change the default browser in Windows, except for some embedded browser experiences. Windows just shipped with Internet Explorer as its default, did not offer alternatives on its own (you had to look for it) and generally behaved as if Internet Explorer was the be-all-end-all browser.

Still you had a choice in theory, but most people didn't make use of it in practice. This is why they got sued.

With iOS you don't have a choice to change the default browser at all and 3rd party browsers are not even allowed to use their own engine, while being restricted to a slower version of Safari's engine. Time for someone to step in and stomp right on Apple's toe.

 

[Jayomat]

My first thought is.… why? The WebKit web browser frame is, like, butt simple (2 lines of code), and it can load web pages from an external URL… just fine (one line of code). Works perfectly. Simply bizarre why I would want to do this. The Chrome browser is not going to be faster than the WebKit plug in (slower, actually)...

Because if you use Chrome on multiple platforms your bookmarks etc. will be synced automatically. Safari for iOS has still no unified search/url bar, which is pathetic. Also, chrome has nice features in iOS, for example switching tabs by swiping left/right. Feature wise, it's just the better "browser".

 

[dannytip]

I'd like to see ALL the default app's removed from iOS. Let me choose what i install. Surely i would make things easier for apple too as they could simply roll out a safari update etc.

 

[Terrin]

I started doing a check in my apps. If the user has Chrome installed, links open in that. Otherwise it falls back to Safari.

That way we dont have to mess around with 'integration tools' for simple links to the browser.

All you do is direct a link to googlechrome://<your link here> and it'll force it to open in chrome instead of safari.

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Its the ecosystem. For me Chrome is miles better than Safari because I can pull up pages I have open on any other device that I use Chrome on. It syncs my bokmarks, logins, etc. In comparison Safari is obviously limited to only doing it with Safari on your mac, and if (like most people) you dont use Safari on your mac, its not very useful.

I would guess most people do use safari on their Mac.

 

[Born Again]

Not exactly. You always could change the default browser in Windows, except for some embedded browser experiences. Windows just shipped with Internet Explorer as its default, did not offer alternatives on its own (you had to look for it) and generally behaved as if Internet Explorer was the be-all-end-all browser.

Still you had a choice in theory, but most people didn't make use of it in practice. This is why they got sued.

With iOS you don't have a choice to change the default browser at all and 3rd party browsers are not even allowed to use their own engine, while being restricted to a slower version of Safari's engine. Time for someone to step in and stomp right on Apple's toe.

Agreed

Someone sue

 

[rmwebs]

I would guess most people do use safari on their Mac.

I tried to find some official stats however nobody seems to be combining Browser + OS right now so theres no way of really knowing. Given Chrome's current marketshare I'm not so sure Safari is actually the most widely used OS X browser.

 

[fivedots]

I tried to find some official stats however nobody seems to be combining Browser + OS right now so theres no way of really knowing. Given Chrome's current marketshare I'm not so sure Safari is actually the most widely used OS X browser.

Good, I'm not crazy. I tried to do the same but none of the sources would allow filtering market share by OS. A shame.

 

[bayxsonic]

I would guess most people do use safari on their Mac.

For what it matters: On a pop singer's website I manage (1500 visits daily) I see that 75% of OSX visits are from Safari. Honestly I didn't expect that.
It's about the same on nearly every website I see here, 60%+ of OSX users use Safari. Only a website on web development has 44% Safari, 40% Chrome