Google is not only routing iOS users from its Gmail app to its own apps, such as YouTube, Chrome and Google Maps apps, it’s now helping other third-party iOS developers send their users to Google apps too. On Tuesday the company announced a way to integrate Chrome with their iOS apps; another way of saying Google is helping other developers not use Apple’s default Safari mobile browser.
From the official Chrome team blog:
With Chrome’s OpenInChromeController class with x-callback, users can open a web page in Chrome and then return to your app with just one tap.
So not only can developers opt to have their links in those apps open in Chrome, they get a nice back button that is labeled with their app’s name.
It’s good for developers to have options. And Google — Apple’s biggest competitor — has been able to build apps that can easily replace some of the iPhone’s core services; it’s something the company has been slowly rolling out ever since Apple decided it no longer wanted to rely on Google for some of its most important default apps, such as YouTube and Google Maps, for example — last year.
Apple doesn’t allow users to set alternate browsers as the default in iOS. But now Google is creating ways for developers to pick its browser for users. It will be interesting to see how Apple responds or how long it allows this to go on.
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