There are only two mobile browsers that matter—Safari and Chrome. Between them they control 91% of the global market. There’s no Safari on Android, and so the only real head-t0-head battle for mobile users takes place on iPhone. And that battle has suddenly changed, with Google’s surprise new update targeting millions of users.
Apple has warned iPhone users not to use Chrome. Safari billboards appeared in cities worldwide earlier this year, featuring an iPhone and the tag “Safari—a browser that’s actually private.” Apple didn’t name Chrome—it didn’t need to, given it’s the only competition to Safari on mobiles. But in a technical update at the same time, promoting Safari’s defense against user tracking, it did name Chrome. “Staying with the 2005 definition of private mode as only being ephemeral, such as Chrome’s Incognito Mode, simply doesn’t cut it anymore. Users expect and deserve more.”
The real push to turn Apple users away from Chrome came in the form of a powerful video ad. Filmed in the style of Hitchock’s ‘The Birds,’ the ad featured flying spies following users, watching their online browsing until opening Safari stopped them. The ad was titled ‘Flock,” perhaps a nod to Google Chrome’s ill-fated privacy sandbox which started life as FLoC—the federated learning of cohorts.
Now Google is fighting back, with four new updates to Chrome on iOS announced on Tuesday. The highlight of which is all about AI, with a new option to use its brilliant Google Lens “to search with images and text at the same time.”
As Google explains, “previously, you could take a photo or upload one from your gallery to search an image with Google Lens in Chrome on iOS. Now, you can also add words to your visual query to search with images and text at the same time. This allows you to perform more complex and specific searches, with more helpful and relevant results.” This is also about pushing Gemini AI onto iPhones as ChatGPT readies its formal debut with iOS 18.2
“Depending on your search,” Google says, “you might also get an AI Overview that brings together the most relevant information from across the web.” There are also reports this week that Google might be readying a standalone Gemini app for iPhone.
The second update takes a a nibble at iCloud, with the option to store photos and files in Google Drive. “Tired of getting the ‘Storage Almost Full’ notification on your iPhone or iPad?” Google teases. “Good news: You can now free up storage space on your device by saving content from the web to Drive and Photos directly from Chrome on iOS… If you want to save an image from Chrome to Photos, simply long-press the picture and select ‘Save in Google Photos.’”
The third new feature is enhanced online shopping with new pricing insights. It’s US only for now, but “once the feature is available on your device,” Google says, “you’ll see a ‘Good Deal Now’ notification right in your address bar” when browsing for specific products. “Tap it to uncover helpful details like price history, price tracking and more buying options.” Non-US users will get this over the coming months.
Finally, there is a new, tighter integration between Chrome and Google Maps. “It was already possible to view a map of an address without switching between Chrome and Google Maps, and now navigating from your browser is becoming even easier… When you’re on a website and see an address for a specific location, all you’ll need to do is tap the underlined address and you’ll be able to view a mini-map of the location directly in Chrome.” This, Google says, is still a fairly new and experimental update but will be enhanced for users over the coming months.
In July, I reported that Google seems intent on recruiting millions more iPhone users into its tracking ecosystem. And this push across Chrome and its other apps, using AI as the lure, is consistent with that aim. Google’s reported target is to grow its share of iPhone searches across its own apps from 30% up to 50%. Simple maths suggests that’s around 700 million of iPhone’s 1.4 billion users, and that Google needs to push 300 million more iPhone users to adopt Chrome for this to work.
Chrome dominates desktops and Android, it’s only Safari’s hold across Apple’s ecosystem that seemingly keeps it at bay. Ceding iPhone ground to Google just as the AI race hots up would seem a very bad move for Apple, and so I would expect the Safari versus Chrome battle to run and run and Apple to respond.
In this, there are two threats for Apple to overcome. First, this comes just as regulators are pushing a more extreme unlocking of walled gardens than we’ve seen before. And second, across all other platforms Chrome has demonstrated that users care more for features and performance than tracking and privacy—just look at the negligible difference Chrome’s tracking cookie reversal has made to its stats.
On Windows, where Chrome absolutely dominates, Microsoft is fighting a constant battle to push Chrome users to Edge. It’s having very little success.
There is one other backdrop to this—Google’s search default across iPhone now under threat from regulators. It may need to port users to Chrome to maintain its search dominance. And that brings us to its real issue—AI as the future of search. Currently ChatGPT is better placed to exploit Apple’s high-value iPhone ecosystem than Google. That could be very bad news for the world’s leading search platform.
