Google announces Chrome for iPhone and iPad

SAN FRANCISCO--The second day of Google I/O was all about the Web as a platform, and the platform is going mobile.

Google announced the stable version of Chrome for Android (download) and, somewhat unexpectedly, Chrome for iOS. Despite both bearing the Chrome branding, they both betray the promise of Chrome -- in different ways.

Chrome for Android bears all the bells and whistles of its desktop counterparts. It's got Google's blazing V8 engine, JIT JavaScript rendering, and many of its modern-browsing features. Sync is finally smooth on Chrome, and minor flaws like the absent password sync are coming, a Google representative told CNET.

Meanwhile, Chrome for iOS does a slightly better job at this point at porting the Chrome experience to iPhones and iPads than Chrome for Android. Password syncing is in place, as is "Chrome to Phone," the ability to send a page from PC Chrome to iOS. It's also got a clever, slick way to swipe through tabs.

So where do they go wrong? Chrome for Android is, simply put, not available to the vast majority of Androids. It only works on Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and above, and it's only the default stock browser on certain 4.1 Jelly Bean devices -- such as the new Ne... [Read more]

The Dolphin Garage launch page.

SAN FRANCISCO--Tugging on Chrome's coat tails, the popular Dolphin browser has announced alongside the Google I/O developer conference a new framework for developers called Dolphin Garage.

Garage is an open API program for extending the functionality of Dolphin. Powered in part by Adobe Phonegap and Dolphin's own HTML5 framework called Engine, it will include the release of more than 150 APIs, which will allow developers to create their own add-ons for the browser.

Engine has proven to be a big boon for Dolphin, explained David Dehghan, technical architect at Dolphin. While at a W3C Web standards meeting at Facebook HQ in Mountain View, Calif., he told CNET, "People are surprised that we're actually passing many of the mobile browsers. We support more HTML5 than any other browser."

Nevertheless, the process of creating Garage was not an easy one, said Dolphin's head of marketing, Edith Yeung. "This is the first time that we've opened up some of our code to other people, so it's been a learning experience for us. It's definitely not easy to explain how we code to other people."

Dolphin reached out to some high-profile developers early. Garage launches with a Dropbox add-on for downloading Dropbox items without having to leave Dolphin; an Evernote add-on called "Remember Everything... [Read more]

Instacast for iOS is even better in its new 2.0 incarnation.

Earlier this week, with almost no fanfare, Apple introduced a new Podcasts app, effectively breaking audio and video podcasts loose from the iPod app where they've resided since the iPhone's early days.

As a die-hard podcast fan, I was interested to say the least. But after spending some time with the new app, I must admit I'm disappointed.

For starters, the interface is something of a mess. It doesn't flow; there's too much moving back and forth between different screens and sections. I'm a fairly tech-savvy user, and it took me a while before I really figured out the navigation.

What's more, the Top Stations feature lists popular shows by cover art, but in my experience the app was very slow to load that art -- or it just failed to altogether. Because there's no text description accompanying each thumbnail, you have to tap the little info bug to find out what a show actually is.

Also, if you want to download a particular show for offline listening, you have to view its episode list by tapping through that info bug. If you go to the show list within the Now Playing screen, you won't find a ... [Read more]