According to a report by analyst group Macquarie (USA) Equities Research, Google is expected to release it’s popular desktop and mobile browser Chrome for iOS devices including iPhone and iPad. Their research note suggests that the release of Chrome for iOS will be beneficial for Google as it would relieve the search giant from high cost it pays to Apple to keep it’s search as default in Apple’s mobile Safari. This move will also shift a large number of Apple Safari users to Google’s Chrome on Apple’s own mobile devices. Macquarie expects Chrome for iOS to get it’s approval from the big guys at Google this quarter.
Kevic C. Tofel of GigaOm is a bit skeptical about Chrome’s success on iOS. Here’s what he says:
Why? Because although Apple now allows such browsers — it originally didn’t — none of them can be set as the default browser, meaning all links in emails, texts or other apps will always open in Safari, regardless of what other browsers are installed. That’s a big usability barrier that gives Safari a competitive advantage on iOS, no matter how great Chrome is. Ironically, Google (as well as Mozilla) are grumbling about Microsoft giving its own Internet Explorer an advantage on Windows 8 as well.
It will be interesting to see Chrome for iOS releasing in the App Store. Chrome is already available for Android devices, and it is pretty good. It will also be interesting to see how big of a success it becomes on iOS, despite limitations imposed by Apple on third party browsers.
[GigaOM]
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