Did Google sneak Chrome OS into the App Store?

Install the updated Google Search for iPad app (iTunes, free), touch the prominent Applications icon on the home screen and have a look around. Look familiar? It’s a spitting image of Google’s Chrome OS (found on the Chromebook) - at least functionally speaking, anyway.

It’s essentially a fancy HTML5 page with tiles for launching the innumerable Google web apps, like Gmail, Calendar, Docs, et. al.

While it might not be called “Chrome for iOS” or anything, what’s the difference?

Regardless of how you feel about Google’s various software tools, there’s a better reason to use the Google Search app for iOS: Voice Search.

Two over from the Applications icon is Voice Search, which (kind of) makes up for the iPad’s lack of native voice recognition, or worse, Siri. Touch it and speak your search terms in plain English, they get transcribed and searched in Google. Accuracy is excellent and on par with the excellent Dragon Go app, which sadly isn’t iPad-native.

Tip of the hat to The Next Web’s Matthew Panzarino for picking up on it.

Related: Google Search for iPad/iPhone adds Chrome OS features (hands on)