14 DAY TRIAL // There have been a lot of people speculating about Google Chrome on Android. The latest rumors would have you believe that Chrome is coming along with this week's launch of Ice Cream Sandwich.
Which is, in part, true. But the important thing to note here is what exactly does 'Chrome' mean, on the desktop and on mobile devices.
The Android browser will switch to the WebKit version now powering Chrome
This summer, the Chrome/Chromium team set about creating a version of the flavour of WebKit that powers Chrome to run on Android OS.
The Android browser also uses the WebKit layout engine, however, it's using a different flavour. WebKit is used by Safari, both the desktop and mobile version, and plenty of other browsers, but they all use slightly different, customized versions of it.
The WebKit in Chrome was not the same as the WebKit in the Android browser for a long time.
However, with the effort to unite the two, the Android browser was set to switch to the slightly newer WebKit used in Chrome and drop its own custom version. The team is very close to doing that now. By all accounts the ICS browser will be powered by the Chrome flavor of WebKit.
That alone though should not 'transform' the Android browser into "Chrome" though, WebKit is just one component, an important one, but a browser is made up of a lot more.
The Android browser and Chrome have always shared a lot of components and code, especially the Honeycomb version
Of course, the Android browser and Chrome shared other stuff as well, the V8 JavaScript engine for example, also other code. Again, even so, the Google Chrome that 200 million people use would not have been the same as the Android browser.
It gets more confusing. The Android browser that Google debuted along with Honeycomb, the tablet version, brought tabs, bookmark and data sync with Chrome, as well as a somewhat similar UI. But that was still called 'Browser' and not Chrome.
Yet, the latest rumor say that "Google Chrome" is coming to Android. And, indeed, signs indicate that Google is ready to launch a Chrome-branded browser for Android.
The Ice Cream Sandwich version of the Android browser will share even more code with Chrome
So why is Google using the Chrome name and not the generic 'browser' as it has until now, even though the two browsers shared several components before as well?
Well, it does look like the Android browser will share even more with Chrome. The guts will be common, WebKit and V8 as well as the HTTP stack, it will have data sync and even support for multiple-profile, just like the desktop Chrome.
The UI is also getting a revamp, so maybe it will be more similar to the desktop Chrome.
Yet, there will still be differences, the Chrome you will get on an Android phone is not Google Chrome compiled for the mobile platform, it's a different browser that shares some components and code but also has a lot of differences, certainly a lot more than those between the Windows, Linux and Mac OS X builds.
Why then is Google switching to the Chrome name then? The answer is in the question itself, Google is switching to the Chrome name, i.e. it's a branding thing.
In the end though, choosing the "Chrome" name over the generic "browser" has more to do with the brand than the technology
Having a browser named "Browser" is not really going to make it stick into peoples' minds. Having a browser named "Chrome" on Android on the other hand would be a great boost both to the Chrome brand but also to Android phones.
Having the Chrome name and logo inside Android, the default browser for close to 200 million phones, is going to drive at least some of those users to try out Chrome on the desktop.
At the same time Google has spent plenty of money advertising Chrome and building the brand. It would be a shame not to take advantage of that and use in on its very popular Android browser as well.