Confirmed: Chrome Is Coming To Android
Are you sick of Google Chrome news yet? We can't blame you, but you'll have to bear with us. It's not everyday that Google releases a brand-new web browser. The latest news regarding the much-hyped browser? It's coming to Android. According to Google Co-founder Sergey Brin, "a subsequent version of Android is going to pick up a lot of the Chrome stack." Wow, did he just say that the Google phone is getting a Google browser? Yep, he sure did.
Although Chrome and Android weren't developed together, there's already been a lot of speculation that the new browser would soon make its way to the Google OS, code-named "Android," which is coming soon to a T-Mobile HTC Dream near you.
While we don't expect the Dream to feature a version of Android that includes Chrome, we can certainly expect to see it in later versions. Brin confirms that subsequent versions will include it. He also guesses that the branding will remain the same when the browser goes mobile, with it being called "...'Chrome-like' or something similar."
Will the lightweight browser have as big of an impact on the mobile world as here on the desktop? It's possible that it might even have more of an impact over there. We think the iPhone is great, but it's a closed platform. Like Android, Google Chrome, on the other hand, can be licensed to any carrier that wants to do business. It can also run on numerous types of handsets.
If Google can make web apps work on the mobile device as well as on the desktop, then they will have truly made a giant step forward to making the cloud a real computing platform for the future: Build with App Engine, use in Chrome on desktop or mobile, go offline with Gears. Not a bad strategy.
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This is awesome news... and as we predicted at phandroid they'll probably create great ways for your phone to interface/sync with your computer by utilizing the same browser... er... OS?
Lots of discussion on both at these forums:
http://ChromeSpot.com
http://AndroidForums.com
I've a hypothesis.
You'll be able to run Javascript, the same code you write for the browser, in Google App Engine. V8 is a very high performance virtual machine. For what? A new browser? You think they're going to spend 2 years developing a new browser? Think again. I'd be willing to guess Google App Engine is already being powered by V8. Android will have V8 baked in as well. Google Chrome, already has V8. See a trend here? Sharpen your JavaScript chops ladies - things are going to get interesting.
What about libraries? There's a reason a lot of the features in Gears are similar to OS-like "stuff" (workers, http requests, persistence storage, local server). Sounds a lot like the things that are already baked into GAE (BigTable, UrlFetch). Noticing another trend? Gears will be available in App Engine at some point (< 24 months?).
Wanna know another hypothesis of mine? Apple is just buying time with their current SDK. Objective-C is a piece of 20 year old garbage. Expect to see V8 on iPhone as well.
Of course, I've been wrong before.
Are you sure he said "Chrome-like" and not "Chrome-lite"? The latter makes more sense to me.
Sounds like the comments we just had in TheSocialGeeks podcast. Almost exactly the prediction!
Episode 7 http://TheSocialGeeks.com