Kevin Bostic
Google looks to be attempting to grow its mini-ecosystem on Apple's iOS platform, as the search giant is now enticing developers to have their apps open web links in its Chrome browser.
Google on Tuesday publicized a new API feature, OpenInChromeController, in a post (via The Inquirer) on The Chromium Blog. OpenInChromeController allows developers to have links within their apps open in Google's Chrome iOS browser instead of in the default Safari browser. OpenInChromeController also makes the Back button in Chrome point toward the originating app, so that users can return to the app in one tap.
The feature also allows for checking whether Chrome is installed on a device, and developers can specify whether a link should open in a new tab or not.
Google provided additional documentation on the OpenInChromeController API on its developers site. Developers can download the API from that site in order to integrate it into their apps, if they wish.
Taken in combination with Google's recent Chrome efforts on iOS, the search giant's push to integrate and expand its own micro-ecosystem on Apple's mobile platform comes into stark relief. Monday saw the release of an updated Gmail app that doesn't route web links, location data, and YouTube links through Apple's default Safari browser. Instead, the app now opens such links directly within Google's relevant apps: Chrome Google Maps, and YouTube.
Google's Chrome browser debuted to some degree of popularity, but the inability to set it as a default browsing app on iOS has relegated the browser to a very distant second place to Apple's Safari among iOS browsers.
Tying Chrome and other Google services together, though, could be a way for the search giant to grow browser share and enrich its suite of apps on Apple's platform. Google has, for the past few months, been building in the capability for its apps to interact with each other, tweaking its Google+ app to open links in Chrome in addition to its more recent efforts.
Opening up the possibility for developers to specify a default browser other than Apple's Safari, though, could mark the beginning of a new generation of browser wars similar to the struggles seen between Microsoft's Internet Explorer and other competitors in the desktop computing era.
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69 Comments
Good. We've had browser choice on Mac OS X all along, why can't we have it on iOS? What is Apple afraid of? (Yes, jailbreakers can easily set Chrome to be the default browser, but not everyone jailbreaks.)
They are afraid that Google will steal data unknowingly like they were secretly doing with Safari until caught and charged a huge fine. They are not to be trusted.
i have chrome installed, but i don't want it to be my default browser... so this is rather annoying.
Considering that Google is looking to branch WebKit into their own project, at which point I don't think future versions of Chrome will be allowed on the store (unless, of course, they don't integrate the new code they swear they have and need said branching to implement)... does it really matter? Seems like they're only setting up developers - and Chrome users - for disappointment when in a few months to a year, everything gets shunted back to Safari and devs need to redo their apps.
i have chrome installed, but i don't want it to be my default browser... so this is rather annoying.
If I read right it doesn't change your default browser, it would still be Safari. Developers would just have a choice of making a call to Chrome within their app, if Chrome is already installed. I think I have that right.