Chrome for iOS is live and ready for download, here’s what you need to know

Chrome is currently not available in all stores, but keep trying as it will be soon.

It was a big second day at Google’s I/O developer conference. The company announced many updates and releases (you can catch our full roundup here) but the big news today was the release of the Chrome browser for iOS.

While we’ve not yet had a chance to dig in with the browser just yet, you should know that there are some restrictions that iOS sets which are potentially harmful toward Chrome’s adoption on the platform. The first of those is the inability to set anything other than the Mobile Safari app as your default browser. The second, and arguably larger problem, is that Chrome won’t be able to access the Nitro JavaScript engine in iOS.

Maybe it’s a deal-breaker, or maybe it’s nothing. We’ll all have to decide for ourselves. For now, you can download Chrome for iOS from the App Store and give it a shot on  your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.

What’s that Android folks? Only 7% of you can run Chrome because it requires 4.0+? You jelly (bean)?

Update: First tests are in and here’s what we’ve seen, tested on my iPhone 4S –

And now, from an iPad 2 –

The numbers don’t lie folks. When it comes to performance, Chrome can’t keep up with Mobile Safari and its access to the Nitro JavaScript engine. You might prefer the UX of Chrome, but the performance simply isn’t going to compare until Apple opens up Nitro to third parties. For more on the issues at hand, head over to see what TNW’s Matthew Panzarino has to say.

➤ Google Chrome for iOS