Ina Fried

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Google’s Chrome Browser Coming to iPhone and iPad

Google said on Thursday that it is bringing its Chrome browser to the iPhone and iPad, the latest step in the company’s effort to take its browser beyond the desktop.

The browser, due to show up in the App Store later in the day, offers signature features of Chrome, including synchronization across devices and an anonymous “incognito” mode. Presumably, though, it uses Apple’s WebKit-based browser engine under the hood, as required by Apple’s terms.

Usage of Google’s Chrome browser has soared in the past year, with more than 310 million active users, up from 160 million a year ago.

That equates to 60 billion words typed and one terabyte of data downloaded each day, according to Chrome head Sundar Pichai.

Google made the announcement at the start of day two of its I/O developers conference in San Francisco.

Much of Google’s Chrome effort now centers around taking Chrome from being a desktop browser into one that is used on mobile devices and even on its own as an operating system in the company’s Chromebooks.

Google released a test version of Chrome for Android in February. With the new Nexus 7, Chrome is, for the first time, the default browser in an Android device. Chrome requires at least Android 4.0.

Beyond just having versions of Chrome on different devices, the company has focused on allowing users to take not only their bookmarks and settings, but also on letting users keep the same tabs open across multiple devices.

Thursday’s keynote is still going on. Click here for AllThingsD’s live coverage.

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Another gadget you don’t really need. Will not work once you get it home. New model out in 4 weeks. Battery life is too short to be of any use.

— From the fact sheet for a fake product entitled Useless Plasticbox 1.2 (an actual empty plastic box) placed in L.A.-area Best Buy stores by an artist called Plastic Jesus