By Jonathan Charles | Jul 07, 2012 09:33 AM EDT
The release of Google Chrome for iOS has been met with a positive reception, due the the browser's increased functionality and almost-on-par speed with Safari for iOS (if Javascript rendering was a little better, then the speed would be faster). Dive into the browser, though, and there are great features that may not jump out just by typing a URL.
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Design: Similar, Yet Different
Google did a good job of developing a version of Chrome that not only felt consistent across the iPhone/iPod Touch and iPad versions, but like the desktop version. The omnibar is of course present, with tabs available unlike the current version of Safari for iOS. There's also a light grey minimalistic design, which doesn't distract.
There's also familiar icons such as a star for bookmarking a page, and the back, forward and reload buttons. For users who have been using Chrome on the desktop, or even on Android, there will be no problems getting familiar with the browser.
Voice Search ... Without Siri
Siri is right now only available on the iPhone 4S, though it's coming to the new iPad with iOS 6, but Google Chrome for iOS supports voice searching without the personal assistant through Google's voice search technology. There's a microphone icon which users can tap to speak to search.
Cross-Device Sync
Transferring sessions from Chrome for the desktop and iOS is simple: register a Google Account that's using Chrome, and bookmarks will appear. When browsing on iOS devices, refreshing a page with a synced account on one device - such as the iPhone - will show it on other devices such as the iPad. It might not be a daily feature, but if a Web page is being shown to someone or a new device is being used then not having to re-enter the URL is a nice touch.
View All Favorite Web sites
Open a new tab, swipe to the right and all of the favorite Web sites will show in small square icons. It might seem unimportant to most users, but it replaces showing pages as text and uses the smaller display of iOS devices well.
Google Chrome for iOS is available now for free.
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