Voice Search coming to Chrome for iOS soon

Google is on a roll these days. Hot on the heels of updating its desktop Chrome browser with Siri-like conversational search earlier today, the Internet giant just published a post over at the official Chrome blog confirming that Chrome for iPhone and iPad with voice search is“coming soon.”

A Chrome update for the iPhone and iPad will be ready “over the coming days” and will let you speak your searches into Omnibox, which in Google’s parlance means Chrome’s combined search and address box.

You’ll even get certain results spoken back to you, right in the Chrome browser – how cool is that?

According to Google, you’ll just need to tap the new mic icon found right above the keyboard.

Doing so will bring up that familiar listening mode interface which resembles Google Now.

Say your search query aloud and see your results (in some cases spoken back to you), all without typing a single letter.

You can see what the new Chrome with voice search looks like top of post.

The Internet giant a month ago added voice searching to its native Search iOS app through Google Now integration. And as I mentioned in the lead paragraph, voice search is now available in the latest Chrome 27 build on Windows and OS X, as pictured below.

Google lists the following searches to test spoken responses in the upcoming Chrome refresh:

• “How many miles from San Antonio to Dallas?”
• “What’s the weather in Rome?”
• “Who stars in The Internship?”

The company also says the new Chrome enables faster reloading of web pages by using the cache more efficiently when the network is slow, a useful feature for those using Chrome often while on the cellular network.

But that’s not all, Google says that “other iOS apps can now give you the option to open links in Chrome and then return to the app with just one tap.”

Coincidentally or not, the firm earlier this month educated iOS developers on how they can use a simple callback function to launch web links in Chrome instead of mobile Safari.

Chrome is a free universal app for your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad devices.

Chrome for Android also received some love today.

The new version, available now via Google’s Play store, enables sought-after fullscreen mode and adds a tab history available by long-tapping Chrome’s Back button.

It sure as hell is interesting how Google is building a platform on top of Apple’s iOS platform – and there’s seemingly nothing Apple can do about it.

No matter how you look at it, Apple can’t be happy about Google stealing back some of Siri searches by incorporating voice searching right into its mobile Chrome browser.