What you need to know
- Google highlights new features arriving on Chrome for Android tablets.
- The new updates are designed to make it easier to navigate across open tabs.
- Google Chrome for desktop’s popular Tab Grouping will soon roll out to Android tablets.
Google is releasing a new version of Chrome for Android that promises to make navigating between tabs easier, especially on tablets. In a press release, Google announced new Chrome updates coming to Android tablets, including the upcoming Pixel Tablet, slated to release next year.
Google highlights a side-by-side design that is meant to make it easier to find tabs, which should be helpful for users that often have many open tabs. Further, if you’re switching between two tabs quite often, the new update brings in an auto-scroll back feature, and users can swipe across the Chrome omnibox to switch tabs as needed.
Additionally, Google says it will hide the close button on the browser if numerous tabs open in order to prevent users from accidentally closing them all. However, Google notes that a tab can be easily reopened with one-step restore.
Google is also highlighting a new tab grid on Android tablets to make navigating between multiple tabs more comfortable. Users can seamlessly scroll between the tabs they’re looking for and open them with fewer taps. The search giant also suggests that it also works well with foldable devices.
With the new updates, sharing and saving content from Chrome for Android can be much more straightforward. Users can drag and drop images, texts, and links from Chrome to other favorite apps like Gmail, Photos, or Keep, the latter of which recently received drag-and-drop capabilities.
The new update allows users to “always request and display the desktop version of the site,” in case the mobile version of a website doesn’t look quite right on your large tablet.
While these features are already rolling out for Google Chrome across Android tablets, a new prominent feature from the desktop version of Chrome is coming soon. The familiar Tab Groups feature, which is quite popular on the desktop, allows users to keep multiple tabs under a single group and further allows users to create multiple such groups. Google doesn’t say when it will be available, but it will come “soon.”
With these new features, Google is further optimizing its apps and services for tablets ahead of the Pixel Tablet launch next year. The company says that it is constantly working on making the Google Chrome experience similar irrespective of the device, with the aim to have a unified experience on the desktop or tablet or on the best Android devices.
