Chrome on iOS is sluggish, but at least it syncs

During day two of the Google I/O conference the company moved away from the topics of Google Glassand Android to talk about its Chrome web browser and related web technologies. The Chrome web browser stole the show with the announcement that an iOS version would be available for the iPhone and iPad. There were also smaller reveals, such as the fact that Chromebooks would be sold at Best Buy, but those released much less fanfare than the notion of the speedy Chrome browser on Apple’s mobile hardware.

Chrome on landing in the App Store is a big deal. Unfortunately, Apple has instituted some restrictions that handily prevent mobile Safari from being dethroned

With that said, Chrome on iOS is an interesting development and it does bring several neat features to Apple’s mobile users. The most noticeable benefit is gaining access to Google’s Chrome interface. The user interface features a single text input bar for URL and search entries, and tabs listed above the URL bar (with gesture support for tab switching). The Google browser also includes a private browsing mode — called Incognito — that is much easier to find (and use) versus Safari which hides the feature in the Settings application.

Being Chrome, it is able to access and sync browser bookmarks and saved passwords from Chrome browsers on other systems when logged in with your Google ID. Another new feature allows you to see the websites open on your other Chrome instances — on desktop or other mobile platforms — and open them in the Chrome browser on your iPhone or iPad (or the other way around). Users are also reporting that Chrome is able to open more tabs at a time than Safari, which limits you to 8 open browser tabs.

Although Chrome on iOS has several useful features, in the end it is mostly mobile Safari with a new skin. The back-end and underlying web page rendering code is the same WebKit libraries that Safari uses. You will not find Google’s customi ed “V8″ rendering engine — which the desktop version of the browser uses to improve JavaScript performance. To make matters worse, while Safari is allowed to use Apple’s “Nitro” JavaScript engine to speed up page load times and web application performance, Chrome is prohibited from accessing the Nitro libraries (as are all third party browsers).

This means that Apple’s Safari browser will have a large advantage when it comes to performance. Initial benchmarks comparing performance (JavaScript and page load times) between the two browsers do seem to support that statement — with Safari displaying significantly better benchmark results and, in some cases, slightly decreased page load times. Taking away the tweaked V8 JavaScript engine and Google’s other WebKit touchups is a big disadvantage. Granted, this may be somewhat mitigated by Chrome’s ability to pre-fetch web pages, but it is still not good news for the iOS version.

The other major barrier to Chrome overtaking Safari on iOS is that Apple does not allow the competition to be set as the default browser. Any web links given to you in email, messaging, or other applications will continue to open with the native Safari browser.

Chrome on iOS does start to seem like a fruitless venture (pun intended) when presented with the disadvantages (and once the glamor and allure of a new browser wears off). At the same time, Chrome does have an edge in usability — especially if you use Chrome exclusively on your other systems — and it is a foothold into the Apple customer base. It may not win any performance awards (yet), but it does get the Google Chrome name out there in front of potentially millions of people as an alternative to Safari. It will likely be downloaded by quite a few people (at least 2,980 people have rated it so far), who might then check out Chrome on the desktop, on their MacBook, and so on.

Is Chrome on iOS a “Safari Killer?” Probably not, but it will be a successful product all the same.

Chrome on iOS is sluggish, but at least it syncs