Chrome and Android browsers to merge soon?

[Marseille]

Google move hints at Chrome for Android

"We're looking forward to a much better collaboration with the WebKit community," said Google's Andrei Popescu said yesterday in a mailing list message flagged by new Chrome developer Peter Beverloo and spotted by TechCrunch.

...

And when Beverloo filed a WebKit but to track the project, he said, "The Android Browser has come to a point where it shares enough code with Chrome to entirely reuse the Chromium port of WebKit."

...
Google wouldn't comment on its branding plans for the browser. In a statement today, the company said:
The Android Browser and Chrome already share a lot of code, such as the same WebKit rendering engine, V8 JavaScript engine, and HTTP [Hypertext Transfer Protocol] stack. We expect them to continue to share more code over time and have actually started harmonizing our efforts so that Google will have just one port of WebKit to maintain. Beyond that, we have nothing further to share at this time.

It seems to me the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android, due later this year, would be a great time to make the branding change. This version of the mobile operating system is designed to bridge the current divide between Android 2.x for phones and Android 3.x for tablets and to make it easier for Android app programmers to support multiple devices.

It was inevitable, the only stunning thing about this is that it still isn't completed. I agree that Ice Cream Sandwich would be a more compelling product with Chrome mobile in tow. I'm sure lots or even most of the mass market users use the preinstalled browser the same way tons of people still use IE6, but I don't personally know anyone who uses it. Opera, Dolphin, Miren, Skyfire and others dominate in my circles.

That said, I love chrome and the chrome extension ecosphere. As much of that as they can bring to mobile (FINALLY) is welcome.

[RainingLemur]

I've been waiting for something like this to happen. I like Chrome as a browser, and would like to see Google bring all it (the browser) offers to the mobile world.