[Si_Crewe]

Just something I thought I'd ask...

Missus gave her old Galaxy Ace to somebody when she upgraded and I was asked to do a factory reset on it and then install a bunch of app's.

The built-in browser is kinda sucky so I thought I'd install Chrome on it but, for some reason, Chrome just doesn't appear in the Android Market when viewed on the Galaxy Ace.

Wondered if Chrome was missing from the Market for some reason but when I view the market on a phone and tablet running Jellybean it's there.
It's just not there when viewed on the Ace, running Gingerbread.

Is that cos Chrome isn't compatible with Gingerbread any more or summat?

[iHelix]

Chrome has never been compatible with Gingerbread as far as I'm aware, only with devices running 4.0 and above. I know that my old Xperia phone that was running 2.3 was never able to download Chrome while it was available for everyone else.

[Si_Crewe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iHelix

Chrome has never been compatible with Gingerbread as far as I'm aware, only with devices running 4.0 and above. I know that my old Xperia phone that was running 2.3 was never able to download Chrome while it was available for everyone else.

Ah, right ho.

Never knew that.
Kinda remiss for google not to make their own browser compatible with Android.

Figured that was the case but I thought I'd ask.

[JeffG1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Si_Crewe

Kinda remiss for google not to make their own browser compatible with Android.

Hardly. Chrome is compatible with Android, just not very old versions of it.

If software developers made their apps compatible with every version since it first came out, they wouldn't be able to take advantage of the additional features in the later versions, and the apps would be highly constricted in what they could do.

[finbaar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Si_Crewe

Ah, right ho.

Never knew that.
Kinda remiss for google not to make their own browser compatible with Android.

Figured that was the case but I thought I'd ask.

Chrome is, erm, not the smoothest of browsers anyway. It wouldn't run well on an Arm v6 800mhz processor found in the Ace. And it is a big app that can't be moved to the SD card, it would take a large chunk of the internal memory. All in all it is better that you can't install it.

[Si_Crewe]

Quote:

Originally Posted by finbaar

Chrome is, erm, not the smoothest of browsers anyway. It wouldn't run well on an Arm v6 800mhz processor found in the Ace. And it is a big app that can't be moved to the SD card, it would take a large chunk of the internal memory. All in all it is better that you can't install it.

That's interesting too.

Must admit, I don't know a huge amount about Android and I guess that's the sort of thing I wouldn't notice on a quad core phone/tablet.

Did read a bunch of reviews of browsers and Chrome always seems to do well so that's why I installed it (even though I did notice it was a much larger install than other browsers) and, since then, I've always found that other browsers don't do stuff the way I'm used to Chrome doing them (picture slideshows, for example) so I end up going back to Chrome.

Still surprised that Chrome hasn't historically worked with Android though.
I would have thought that, like IE6 was designed for W95 or whatever, there'd always have been a version of Chrome that worked with the concurrent version of Android.

[finbaar]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Si_Crewe

That's interesting too.

Must admit, I don't know a huge amount about Android and I guess that's the sort of thing I wouldn't notice on a quad core phone/tablet.

Did read a bunch of reviews of browsers and Chrome always seems to do well so that's why I installed it (even though I did notice it was a much larger install than other browsers) and, since then, I've always found that other browsers don't do stuff the way I'm used to Chrome doing them (picture slideshows, for example) so I end up going back to Chrome.

Still surprised that Chrome hasn't historically worked with Android though.
I would have thought that, like IE6 was designed for W95 or whatever, there'd always have been a version of Chrome that worked with the concurrent version of Android.

Google provided the AOSP (Android Open Source Browser) from the early days of Android . It is the one with the blue globe. Most manufacturers bundle their own version of it. Just think of this as an earlier version of Chrome. But to get "proper" Chrome working they needed the improvements in Android that came with version 4.0. Hey I like Chrome. It is the only browser I use on my laptop. I generally avoid it on my phone only because it still does not reflow text. If they introduce that I would stick with it.

[kidspud]

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeffG1

Hardly. Chrome is compatible with Android, just not very old versions of it.

If software developers made their apps compatible with every version since it first came out, they wouldn't be able to take advantage of the additional features in the later versions, and the apps would be highly constricted in what they could do.

Not a very old version. A version still sold installed on phones.

[JeffG1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kidspud

Not a very old version. A version still sold installed on phones.

It doesn't follow that just because phones are still sold with these versions (pre-Honeycomb) that they are not old versions.