Google’s Chrome browser comes to Apple’s iPhone

Google and Apple may still be at each other’s’ throats — remember Steve Jobs’ threat to “go thermonuclear war” on the company he felt ripped off the iPhone — but you wouldn’t know it from the way Google was talking on Thursday. At its I/O conference for developers, Google (GOOG, Fortune 500) announced that its Chrome browser will be available in iTunes App Store later on Thursday, as will Google Drive, the productivity app suite that includes Google Docs. The news drew cheers and applause from an excited crowd of software writers.
Chrome-for-iOS Chrome-for-iOS

“People have been asking us for this for a long time, but we wanted to make sure we got it right,” Sundar Pichai, Google’s head of Chrome, said during his keynote presentation.

Chrome is now the most popular browser in the world by some metrics, including Google’s own. It has 310 million active users, and a growing number of them are mobile. Google’s Android mobile operating system began using Chrome as its primary built-in browser in its most recent version.

Chrome’s portability and constant updates have made it a hit, but it hasn’t been available on the world’s most popular smartphone and tablet until today.

Apple’s (AAPL, Fortune 500) restrictions on third-party software are legendary, but browsers in particular have had a difficult time making their way into the iTunes App Store. That’s because Apple’s doesn’t approve apps that duplicate its core functionality.

Source: CNNMoney