It was rumoured for a while, but today it has been confirmed: Google Chrome is coming to iOS.
And the good news is that you don’t even have to wait long to try it – it will be hitting the Apple App Store today for devices running iOS 4.3 and above.
But is it worth it?
Whether Google Chrome for iOS is a good idea depends on you bias towards (or against) Apple.
Many will ask what the point of bringing Chrome to iOS is when Apple prohibit third-party browser’s being set as default
This restriction will result in links, attachments and other items clicked within an app – be it Mail, Twitter or Angry Birds – opening in Safari, regardless of whether the user prefers to use Chrome.
Similarly, Apple do not allow third-party run-times – including rendering and JavaScript engines, which are central to Chrome on other platform. Instead, Google Chrome for iOS uses the version of WebKit that ships in iOS to do the heavy work, and just wraps this in a Chrome UI.
But, on the flip side, there are plus points to the move.
iOS users can take full advantage of Chrome across all of their Mac platforms, including the lure of Chrome Sync for bookmarks and passwords.