Ask HN: this is how Google could make iOS native Mail app open links in Chrome

Okay, this is just an idea, and in the end only Gmail people can implement this, but I wouldn't be surprised that some googlers are visiting HN every now and then so I thought I would give it a stab here:

So, everybody knows that Apple doesn't (and likely will never) allow to choose a default browser on iOS other than Safari. I am somewhat a fan of some alternative browsers like iCabMobile and of course the brand new Chrome (among some others) so it is really a pain to be dragged down to Safari (which is still quite decent, don't get me wrong) every time you click on a link somewhere. This is especially true in Mail.

Of course, there are solutions when you jailbreak and I've done it before but this is not exactly mainstream, and you're back to square one whenever there's a new device that can't be jailbroken usually for months.

So I've thought about a different approach: you probably know about the bookmarklet trick that opens safari's current page in Chrome (or others) by basically replacing the 'http' prefix by 'googlechrome'.

That got me thinking: what if the mail provider (say Gmail) would apply the same trick to each link in the emails it serves to iOS devices? You could choose in your Gmail settings which default browser you want your links to be opened with and that would be it!

At the moment, iOS devices point to the 'm.google.com' server but it sounds easy enough to use instead something like 'ios.google.com' to target iOS devices only, with the modified prefixes. And you keep the ability to easily manage your email as usual (archiving, using folders/labels, etc) the exact way you already do (which wouldn't be as easy by developing some sort of proxy server you would forward your mail to like some 3rd party notification services used to do).

I know, easier said than done, and I'm maybe overlooking some blatant issue (aside from Apple being probably pissed off by the trick) but from my point of view that would be a cool way to bring back a bit of choice here...

Your thoughts?