Google’s iPad App: Almost Chrome, and Trouble for Apple

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The point of all this, for Google, would be to disrupt the app-focused nature of tablets. On desktop PCs, the browser is the most important piece of software you own. But on a tablet, functions that once belonged to the browser–e-mail, news, social networking, casual games–have split off into separate apps. It’s in Google’s interest for users to do more in the browser, where the company makes money on web searches. Web apps aren’t ready to replace native software outright, but the iPad would make a good place for Google to experiment, especially if the company wants to make Chrome OS tablets in the future.

There’s an upside for consumers as well: The more you can do on a browser, the less you need to rely on any particular operating system for your apps. Imagine using the same apps on an iPad, Windows PC and Android phone, because they’re all based in the browser. That would be quite liberating. Also, if you’re doing work in a browser, switching between tabs is a lot faster than opening and closing individual apps.

If this is really Google’s intent, it’ll have to tread carefully. Google can’t sell anything from within its iPad app without going through Apple, so any Chrome Web Store purchases would have to happen on a PC or within the Safari browser, including music, video and paid apps. And if Apple doesn’t like the idea of Google building its own app platform within iOS, it could simply shut down the Google Search app outright. Worse yet, Apple could retaliate by switching to a different default search engine for its own browser, such as Microsoft’s Bing.

Given those risks, I’m not terribly optimistic that Google will take its iPad app to the next level. But in this first release, Google is at least showing the potential to do great things.

MORE: Gmail App for iPad and iPhone Now Available

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