It's Now Easier To Share With Google's Chrome Than With Apple's Safari
August 23, 2012
Released to considerable acclaim late last June, Chrome for iOS has just received its first ever update. But while the update amounts to only three items for its official changelog, one of these items is certainly of note.
The changelog for the latest version of the iOS implementation of Google’s popular Web browser reads thus:
The latter two entries are only to be expected. No surprise there. But the top entry is an entirely different story. It may not be immediately apparent, but Google has just gone ahead of Apple in improving the sharing options in their respective mobile browsers. You see, as it stands, Apple’s mobile Safari already enables emailing and tweeting a link to a webpage. And starting in the upcoming iOS 6, Safari will support sharing a link via Facebook. Given that Apple has been getting rid of Google’s involvement in its stock iOS apps, though, counting on any form of Google+ integration to appear in Safari is futile. But here comes Google with new sharing options for Twitter, Facebook, and, of course, Google+ already supported in Chrome for iOS. To access the app’s new sharing options on both iPhone and iPad version of the app, begin by tapping the options button beside the omnibar. Where it used to say “Email...”, you will now see “Share...” Select that and you will see the separate sharing options for Google+, email, Facebook, and Twitter, in that order. Chrome for iOS is available in the App Store for free. Just a few weeks after its launch on iOS, Chrome already managed to claim 1.5 percent of iOS browser usage. I myself have been accustomed to using it of late. And I expect that more and more will get to use it, especially now that more and more apps are adding the option to open links with Chrome instead of the default Safari.
- Share webpages via email or G+, Facebook, Twitter
- Stability and security improvements
- Many bug fixes addressing user feedback
