A test version of Google Chrome on iOS now lets you put the address bar on the bottom of the screen, as spotted by MacRumors contributor Steve Moser. It’s a nice change that lets you move the address bar closer to your thumb — though notably, it comes two years after Apple moved the URL bar to the bottom of Safari by default with iOS 15.
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
The new Chrome feature was available for me through the version of the app you can get via TestFlight. There are two ways to change the location of the address bar. The easiest is pressing and holding on the bar, which brings up an option to switch its position. You can also change the bar’s location from Chrome’s settings. (A colleague in the UK wasn’t able to find the setting, so it may not be rolled out for everyone on the TestFlight build just yet.)
We’ve asked Google if it plans to bring this feature to everyone who uses Chrome on iOS and if it’s coming to Android, too. The company has tried it on Android before: in 2017, it experimented with a way to put the URL bar on the bottom in Chrome for Android but later removed the feature.
I hope this feature is rolled out widely. As phone screens get ever-bigger, I think it makes sense to give people the option to make the address bar more accessible.
