A review of Chrome for iOS after a weekend of use

Jay and Rich over at Virtual Pants wrote a great review of Google Chrome for iOS, relaying their experiences after a weekend of use. They said it is a fairly good Safari alternative, but the biggest hurdle is the lack of iOS integration:

The inability to set Chrome for iOS as the default browser severely cripples the experience. Links from other apps, such as Maps and Mail, open in Safari. Most people prefer to use one app for each task. For browsing, it is nice to have all of your open websites in one place. Being forced to use Safari for a significant amount of browsing diminishes the experience of using Chrome for iOS.

I agree with them. Chrome for iOS is very sleek and makes for a great alternative over Safari, especially for those who use Google Chrome on a daily basis on our Macs. The ability to keep history, bookmarks, and tabs synced up makes things easy for my daily workflow. However, I would recommend sticking with Safari if you are a devoted Safari user. Apple included some syncing features in the new Mountain Lion and iOS 6, which are both now seeded to developers on Apple’s Developer Center. As for Chrome’s speed, I do not see any slower speeds than Safari in day-to-day browsing, even though JavaScript benchmarks show a very sharp decline for the Nitro-less Chrome.

Again, the sucky part of Chrome for iOS is the lack of “iOS integration.” Open a link in an email, and it opens in Safari. It is frustrating, but something we have to live with for now due to Apple’s restrictions. (Or hook your jailbroken self up with Browser Chooser.)

I am filing Chrome for iOS next to Sparrow. They are both two great alternatives to default Apple apps and both have features that Apple should rip—especially the way you can flip through tabs. How has your experience been with Chrome for iOS?

(via The Loop)